


We Must Not Look At Goblin Men

by Sportatiddy (TjLockticon)



Series: curled up, died, and now it's Rotten [1]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Fae Magic, Fairy!Robbie, Gen, I'm sorry Robbie, Im sorry people die, Is mutual assured magical destruction applicable here, Mutual distrust and anger, Sportacus and the kids are kinda there at the very end, Suffering, glamour, it's gonna get Dark eventually, not Robbie though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 23:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9094717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TjLockticon/pseuds/Sportatiddy
Summary: Robbie was five years old - he thinks - when his Mama told him they're leaving the Court. Five years old when she brought him to a human settlement called Lazytown. Five years old when she told him that he had to learn to fit in with children who knew nothing of wings or magic.Five years old when she whispered of the woods and strange lights in the sky and warned him to never trust an elf.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fae!Robbie is my ultimate weakness and I'm going to make him suffer I'm sorry in advance

"Pack your things, Robbie. We're leaving."

"Why?"

Mama smiled and it was so _fake_ that it hurt Robbie just to look at it. He watched her shove clothes into a suitcase, hunched over just so slightly, her orange and black-tipped wings sheltered underneath a nice sun dress. He'd never seen her hide her wings before, and he'd never seen her look so - so _human._ She was tall, and she had freckles and her usually-golden hair, now dull brown, was out of place and it was _wrong._

He perched on the edge of the bed, felt their little cottage walls seem to press down around him. He watched the air around her shoulders where her wings should be, wondered if and when his would come. "Why do we have to leave?" he asked again. He didn't _like_ the other fairy children, really, their games made no sense to him, they went on for weeks without changing and he couldn't pay attention for that long. But he liked their cottage, liked all the hiding places under the floorboards and the bed and behind the kitchen cabinets. Liked the telescope on the roof and making little machines to help his mama spin yarn.

Mama's fingers clenched a purple blanket she'd knitted for him. "Because."

"Because _why?"_

"Because it isn't safe for you here." Her hand cupped his chin. "You have too much of your father in your blood, the Court won't have you."

He heard it, in her tone, trying to be gentle. _Won't have **me** , either._

"Do you understand, sweetheart?"

"...yes, Mama." It wasn't his _fault,_ he didn't _want_ to be this, if she had to leave it was because of _her_ mistakes-

He started packing. It didn't take long.

 

* * *

 

A man helped them leave the Court, led them down a path overgrown with roots that seemed to leap up around Robbie's ankles, trying to trip him. They left his mama and the man alone - his mama because the trees still liked her, the man because half the time he didn't seem to be there at all, just darkness with large white teeth and purple makeup around the eyes. Sometimes the low-hanging branches scraped at the top of his head, and he growled at them, and they pulled back.

Robbie just had to keep his eyes open, and stay close to mama, and the roots started leaving him alone the farther they got from home.

It felt like they spent _days_ walking down the path. Robbie whined to his mama once to let them stop, let his feet rest, and for a moment she looked like she wanted to let him, but the man insisted that they needed to keep going. So they did, and Robbie's feet blistered. It was only when he started falling behind did the man pick him up and put him on his shoulders.

He carried Robbie the rest of the way to the edge of the woods. When the path disappeared, and the trees opened up to grass and mud and a dirt road, the man put Robbie back down on the ground. He ruffled Robbie's hair and smiled crookedly.

"You watch yourself out there, kid."

Out of the forest, Robbie could see the man, mostly. Black suit, strange heeled boots, short hair, purple around the eyes. He looked, at first, too tall for a fairy, and the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth _almost_ made Robbie think he was all human, but-

Wings. Dark blue, hints of yellow throughout. Proudly flaunted, unlike his mama, but smaller, and not shaped right. Like Robbie imagined _his_ might be.

They hurt to look at. Robbie ducked his head and mumbled when his mama instructed "say thank you".

But he watched _closely -_ the shape of the man's lips as he spoke under his breath, and the pink shimmer of magic around his palm _-_ as the man snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving Robbie and his mama alone on the road, far from the world of the Courts.

 

* * *

 

"Where are we going to live now, mama?"

She looked down the road.

"There's a human town not far from here, outside the Court's territory. We'll be safe there."

Robbie shivered - from excitement or worry, he didn't know. "...humans?"

Mama nodded. She patted his cheek, still plump with baby fat. "Don't you worry, sweetheart. Keep your head down, and mind what I tell you, and you'll fit in just fine."

Robbie bit the inside of his mouth. He hoped she was right.

 

* * *

 

The place the humans lived in was called _Lazytown,_ of all things.

Robbie decided that humans were strange. He kind of liked it.

 

* * *

 

Mama introduced herself to the Mayor as 'Ana Glæpur.' Similarly, she told Robbie to introduce himself as 'Robbie Glæpur.' She said to say that he was five years old, which could have been true for all he knew, since fairies didn't celebrate birthdays. The Mayor seemed nice enough, she handed Robbie something called a 'lollipop' to keep him distracted while she discussed things with his mama.

While Mama and the Mayor talked, Robbie sat on top of their luggage and sucked on the lollipop (it was delicious) and tried to copy what the man with purple around his eyes had done to disappear. It wasn't anything like his mama's magic, with the constellations and yarn and making things look like they weren't there... well, it was a little bit like the third one. All Courts knew how to glamour, his mama said.

 _Disappearing_ , though, and the black shadows...

Robbie wanted to be able to disappear, and hide, and seem like something he wasn't.

Which might be a little difficult, since he didn't really know what he _was_ to begin with.

 

* * *

 

Their new house was... big. It was filled with furniture, stools and chairs and countertops and tables, it had too many windows, it had stairs that led to _more_ rooms filled with _more_ things and it was all so _colorful-_

Robbie went looking for hiding places immediately. There were a few - one underneath the upstairs bathroom sink, and inside a closet, and under the bed in the room his mama claimed - but what was really interesting were the _machines._ Toasters, ovens, a towering white _refrigerator._ He hadn't a clue about their names until his mama told him what they were, but they were all cool to the touch, and they hummed, and they had so many moving parts.

He spent the first week fiddling with the microwave, pressing all the buttons and watching the disk inside spin and sitting mesmerized as leaves crisped and shriveled after he put them inside. When Mama caught him about to put a handful of forks into the microwave, she batted them out of his hand and said to _never_ put metal into a microwave, and suggested he stop messing with the kitchen appliances before he burned the house down. He still fiddled with other machines - a clock, and the TV remote - but he left the kitchen alone. Except for the refrigerator. _That_ had ice cream, and his mama let him have it whenever he wanted.

Getting used to his bedroom was the worst part. He'd never slept away from his mama before, and the first several nights he kept crawling back to her room, scared out his mind by the shadows creeping in through the slats of the window blinds. There was _something_ under his bed, he _knew_ there was, shaped like the roots from the forest that _wanted_ him and would _take_ him if he wasn't careful-

Mama hushed him, carded her fingers through his messy hair. She took him downstairs, to the orange fur-covered recliner front of the unused fireplace.

After the first few nights, it became routine. She would sit him in her lap and pet his hair, purring softly and holding him to her chest. Sometimes, she let out her wings, allowing Robbie to run his fingers over their soft edges.

She told him things he would need to do, in order to be safe.

"You'll be going to school soon, Robbie."

He nodded. He didn't like it - he wanted to stay home and play with machines and try to remember how the air tasted when that man had magic in his hands - but it was what Mama wanted. What they _needed,_ to blend in.

"Don't talk out of turn, and don't talk back to your teachers. You're still young, but your words are still stronger when you _mean_ them, so be careful not to make your teachers do things they wouldn't do if a human child asked them. You understand? You can't be having them wonder."

"What about the kids?" He'd met a handful, when the Mayor took them on a tour around the town. They'd been playing pirates.

Mama sighed. "Children will be children... if they talk about fairies... well, don't tell them more than they know. And never mention the Courts, it'll only make them curious."

He tugged the purple blanket up around his shoulders.

"Never go into the forest, my sweetheart," his mama continued, words sounding distant and absent-minded, but serious. " _Never._ And if you dream of the Courts, _tell me._ I don't want them reaching for you. If strangers come to the town with perfect smiles and eyes with too many colors, do not talk to them, and if they offer you anything, you mustn't accept."

Every night she repeated her rules. Always when Robbie was drifting off, so the words stuck in his subconscious, and stayed through until morning.

_"When you start learning magic, you mustn't show the other children."_

_"You must try to sleep, even if you don't want to, or feel you don't need it, the others **will** take notice if you let your mind stay awake for too long."_

_"Do not look too closely at clouds, or follow strange lights that move in the sky between the stars."_

And the one that made the least sense to him, for he didn't yet know what they were:

_"The Courts are not the only ones who should be feared, my Robbie. You **must** remember; never, **ever** trust an elf."_

 

* * *

 

School was tolerable. More so than the house, since at least there were things to _do_ at school. Adults besides his mother to talk to. Kids to play with who didn't know about Courts and glamours and how hungry tree roots could be. He didn't commit many of his classmates' names to memory, not even after having gone to school for several months. He knew the teachers' names well enough to be polite, but that was it.

He learned to write. He learned the names of shapes, colors. Or rather, the teachers taught him, and he pretended that he didn't already know.

On the playground, Robbie watched the other kids, learned how they moved, how hard they had to fall off the merry-go-round in order to scrape up their arms and bleed. How they cried, noses runny and fists balled, when they were hurt. Robbie knew what _hurting_ was, it was the prickling up his spine if he looked too closely at his mother when she was studying the stars.

Humans hurt differently. He had to hurt like them, to _be_ like them, to _fit._

He practiced. At home, in the bathroom, digging his fingernails into his arm until he bled. Kicking the wall until his toes bruised.

Mama caught him testing a kitchen knife on his shin, once. He told her plainly that he was _learning,_ trying to fit in, hurt like they did.

She sighed and put a Bandaid over the cut instead of fixing him with magic.

"You can't just learn how their pain works. Human children are _scared_ of being hurt. They don't seek it out, and neither should you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mama."

Mama thought that was that, but Robbie quietly figured out that he needed to practice being _scared,_ too. He wasn't scared of the Courts, or the trees - he knew they were dangerous, but _knowing_ wasn't the same as being afraid, he knew that much.

Robbie knew some of the kids were afraid of being up high, and he didn't have wings yet, so he tried that. He climbed up on the monkey bars one day and remembered a human boy - Milford, maybe? - telling him to be careful, but he went up anyway, balancing on top of the bars and looking at the ground that seemed unusually far away from him, and started walking across the rungs-

-it had been raining, yesterday. The bars were still wet.

Robbie slipped with a shriek. He flailed his arms like they were wings, but they didn't catch the air and he plummeted down to the unforgiving concrete and-

Hit. Heard _something_ crack, and couldn't get up. Couldn't see through the black dots swimming in his eyes, or hear through the ringing in his ears.

Couldn't _breathe,_ for a horrifying moment.

"-obbie! Robbie, are you-"

He tried to speak. Couldn't. _Couldn't speak couldn't breathe couldn't move his arms or cry or scream for Mama-_

The black dots grew bigger, denser, until Robbie couldn't see at all.

 

* * *

 

"Mild concussion and a broken arm," the doctor told Mama, after Milford ran and got the teachers and they called home and he was brought to the emergency room. Robbie remembered barely anything, a soft bed and strangers and someone wrapping his arm up until it was stiff and he could barely move his fingers at all. He waited with one of his teachers until his mama came and talked with the nurse.

Robbie hadn't ever seen his mama scared, not when they were leaving the court, not when they were on the road alone, not _ever._ But he could tell in her eyes, almost red, and the way her hold on her human glamour wavered for a fraction of a second... she was scared, not of the Courts or elves or tree roots, but of what could have happened to Robbie when he fell off the monkey bars.

She was quiet on the drive home. She barely managed to maintain her glamour the whole way.

She helped Robbie inside, put him on the orange chair, and whispered, "What were you _thinking??"_

Robbie averted his gaze. "I just wanted..." What _had_ he wanted? To know if he could actually hurt himself, like a human? To know if he could be scared like a proper, normal human child should be?

"You are lucky, sweetheart, so _very_ lucky that you weren't hurt worse," Mama breathed, stroking his cheek.

"I'm sorry." His eyes and throat hurt, and the inside of his nose itched. "I didn't... I didn't want to... I didn't mean..."

"I know, my Robbie, I know." She kissed his forehead. The humanlike gesture caught Robbie off guard. "You'll stay home until your arm is better. And once you go back to school, you'll stay off the monkey bars, won't you?"

"Yes, Mama."

She brought him upstairs and gave him soup and hot chocolate and tucked him in later that night, and he apologized twice more. When she finally turned out the light and bid him sweet dreams, Robbie spent the next two hours crying.

He knew now, what it was like to be scared and hurt, like a _human_ , and he _hated_ it.

 

* * *

 

"When can I learn magic?" Robbie asked on his ninth birthday. There was no celebration, though he did ask for a little more ice cream than usual that day. He doubted Mama even realized it was his birthday; she never bothered with it, but _he_ remembered, mostly because the other kids loved theirs so much. None of them ever put much thought into why he never invited them to his, and he wondered if that was his mama's doing.

She put a grilled cheese sandwich down in front of him, along with a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a bowl. "Whenever you think you are ready," she said. "Fairy children always know when their magic is strong enough to be tapped for the first time."

Robbie looked at the sandwich - or more importantly, _away_ from his mama. "I'm only _half_ , though." His throat tightened. "What if I _can't_ know? Or - or what if I don't have any magic?"

 _Or wings,_ but that went unsaid. He loved his mama's wings, loved how they tickled and how she glittered when she hovered about the house on rare occasions, and the thought of _not_ getting his own... no, he would, he just wasn't old enough yet. Fairies matured faster than humans, and he was half, so he was probably just slow. He'd have to wait until human puberty, probably... only a few years away.

But the waiting got harder with every passing birthday.

Mama frowned a bit. "Robbie, even if you were only a _quarter_ fae, you would have magic... you are Seelie by blood, you'll grow into your power. I know you will, just have patience."

There it was. _Patience._ Always patience, always "mind your teachers and don't speak out", always keep away from anyone who talked like they knew even a _little bit_ about the inhuman world. Always keep from watching daytime thunderstorms. Always do your homework and practice your times tables and _stay away_ from up-high places. Always listen to Mama.

_Never go near the woods, never shout, never play guessing games with the other children because you will **always** win-_

Always Mama's rules. Never mind what he wanted.

"You can practice with my yarn, if you want. Even if you don't have your magic yet."

His throat went from tight to dry. "...I want to learn how to disappear."

She'd been washing a skillet in the sink, but when he spoke up, she went still.

Before she could say anything, Robbie let slip, "I don't want to learn constellations. I don't want to learn weaving spells. I want to make machines to do all of that and learn how to _disappear,_ like - like that man. In the woods. The one who helped us leave."

He couldn't see her face. "...you still remember him?"

"Yes."

His mama was quiet for two long minutes, slowly washing and drying the skillet and putting it back in the cabinet. As she did, Robbie sat staring, not touching his food, wondering why she was so _quiet._

When she finally turned around, she had a smile on her face, and it hurt to look at for a half-second-

"Eat your lunch, Robbie," she said. "You wanted to go to the park today, didn't you?"

He nodded uncertainly, brow suddenly furrowed. "Mama, about-?"

"I'll see what I can do." Her words were clipped. "Promise to eat all of your lunch and I'll try my best to find him."

It felt - just a bit - like a deal, but Robbie didn't know if those would even _work_ on him, maybe he was _just enough_ human-

But it was _Mama._

"I promise." _Deal._

She smiled, and this time it was just lopsided enough and with just enough crinkles for Robbie to know it was real.

 

* * *

 

 

> _Glanni,_
> 
> _I should start off by saying thank you. Robbie has adjusted well to life here in Lazytown. I have managed as best as can be expected.  
>  _
> 
> _I am sorry to bother you again after such a short time. Robbie seems to have remembered you, despite your glamours. He wants to learn your magic, not mine. I told him I would at least try to contact you. I am sure you are otherwise occupied, but I must still request that you come and teach him a little; at least enough to point him in the right direction._
> 
> _Best regards,_
> 
> _Ana_

 

* * *

 

 

> _He really remembered me? Pretty damn perceptive for a kid. You should be proud, Ana.  
>  _
> 
> _Don't worry, I've got nothing better to do right now. Tell him I'm on my way._
> 
> _\- G_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how long until italics and hyphens file a restraining order against me, I wonder...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Glanni swears around children and gives Ana plenty to worry about

Robbie almost didn't believe his mama when she told him, a little over a week after he'd asked about the man with purple eyeliner.

"He's... really coming here?"

"Yes."

Robbie's eyes widened. "And he's-"

"-going to teach you, yes. He said you were perceptive." She smiled as she brushed his hair. "Do you feel better now, my Robbie?"

He leaned into her side and hugged her - lightly, so he wouldn't hurt her wings - and murmured, "Thank you, Mama."

"You're welcome, sweetheart."

 

* * *

 

Robbie had been expecting his mama's friend to show up discreetly, the same way they had come into town that first day years ago.

In hindsight, he hadn't the faintest idea _why_ he'd thought that would be the case. Robbie wasn't sure if 'discreet' was even in this man's vocabulary.

School was being let out and most of the kids had either run down the sidewalk or were idling about waiting for their parents to come pick them up when Robbie felt something crawl up his spine. He was standing somewhat close to Milford at the time - who was entirely distracted by a girl who Robbie wanted to say was named Bessie, but he wasn't sure - and mostly just fidgeting with the straps of his backpack. The feeling almost went unnoticed, as it had been several years since he'd felt such a prominent glamour.

By the time Robbie realized that the tickle on his neck was a warning - _someone is **here** , someone strong and looking for **you** \- _he could hear the tapping of heeled boots on concrete. Turning to his left, he was taken aback by the sheer amount of gaudy _pink_ that adorned the approaching figure. The coat seemed to reflect all the sunlight that encountered it, and _dear gods there was fur._ White fur lining the collar of the coat, and a pink hat shadowing the face.

He could still clearly see the strange, heavy black heeled boots, and the purple makeup around the man's eyes.

The man approached, waving a hand and smiling with large teeth. "Why, Robbie, you've gotten tall!"

There it was. The moment he spoke, it crawled into Robbie's chest and sat heavy, like iron. Robbie couldn't do more than stare, and he honestly wasn't sure if his eyes were hurting from the glamour, or from the aggressive shade of raspberry pink.

One of the teachers was standing outside, keeping an eye on the remaining kids, and luckily she took notice. As she walked over, the man's attention shifted to her, and looking at him became far more bearable.

"Sir, are you a parent?" the teacher asked.

The man shook his head. "Just a relative." He flashed a grin at Robbie. "I'm Robbie's uncle, Rikki. Ana was feeling a bit under the weather and since I was coming into town, she called me and asked if I could pick up Robbie from school."

The teacher glanced at Robbie. "We didn't receive a notice from Ana..."

"My fault," Robbie interrupted as his mind started to clear, adapting to the presence of the older fae. "Mama wanted me to tell you, but I forgot. I'm sorry." Half a lie. He was supposed to tell the teachers that his mama would just be late picking him up - she had errands to run - but he _had_ forgotten, so maybe it was a good thing that 'Rikki' had showed up now.

There was a breathless moment where it looked as if the teacher didn't quite believe him. Then, Rikki coughed, and Robbie saw the teacher's eyes glaze over for a heartbeat, and then she smiled.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Mr. Rikki. Tell Ana I hope she feels better."

Rikki _bowed._ With a flourish that looked ridiculously out of place in Lazytown, but the teacher didn't seem to mind. "My pleasure, miss, and I will," he said, swiveling on his heels and walking over to Robbie. "Come along, my dear nephew, I'm sure your mama can't _wait_ to see me again."

 

* * *

 

"You picked him up from _school??"_ Mama hissed as soon as she got home and stormed through the door. Robbie was sitting up at the kitchen counter at the time, and Rikki was picking at his nails and leaning against the wall. "I drove by the school to get him and he _wasn't there_ and I thought - you should have _told_ me, Glanni!"

"I _knew_ Rikki wasn't your real name," Robbie muttered. Glanni just shrugged.

"My sincerest apologies," Glanni said with not a hint of remorse in his tone. His hat had long since been discarded to a nearby couch, and without it, his eyes were in full view, and Robbie couldn't help but stare at them, and the hints of magenta in the surrounding skin. Glanni had crinkles, and a small scar on his chin, and he looked so much more human than Mama - more than _Robbie._

He was fae, Robbie knew that, but - either he was less fae than Robbie was, or he was just better at making specific glamours, or something else entirely. It _baffled_ Robbie, and that made him all the more eager to learn Glanni's magic. Even when he wasn't _doing_ anything, the man's magic bled through the room, and Robbie was taking care to not think too directly about it. Still, to the best of his ability he was watching the way the light seemed to bend around Glanni's form, and the way dust particles seemed to keep a respectful distance from him at all times.

Still standing at the door, Mama bristled at Glanni for a moment more, then relaxed. She smoothed her hair back with a hand and looked at her son for the first time since she'd come home. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I meant to introduce you two _properly."_

"It's okay," Robbie said.

"I told the teachers I was his uncle," Glanni mentioned offhandedly, still examining his painted nails.

Mama shot him a withering glare. "So you not only picked him up, you _talked_ to his teachers. How long have I been _telling_ you-"

"I _am_ careful. Remember, I've been doing this 'fugitive' thing longer than you have." Glanni gestured vaguely at the house, lip curling distinctly with annoyance. "Are you  _still_ half-assing your wards?"

As Glanni swirled his fingers through the air, Robbie felt something... not quite _snap,_ but more _shift._ Like paper rustling in a notebook, or chalk scratching against the blackboards at school. The air took on a pink hue around the man's palm, and throughout the room the color repeated itself. A glow appeared on the handle of the door behind Mama, and on the latches of all the windows, and up the stairs-

 _"Glanni,"_ Mama cut in exasperatedly.

He let his hand fall to his side, and the glow receded. Something in the house felt broken, and it unsettled Robbie. "I'll make sure to fix them before I go," Glanni said, and then he looked over at Robbie. "Maybe if the kid has a knack for it, he can help you reinforce them."

Mama dragged her hands down her face, slowly wandering over to the island counter where Robbie was sitting. She took a seat on a stool across from him and gave Glanni a look that implied to Robbie that she was trying to ground the man, despite not having any parental power to do so. "Glanni, why don't you be useful and get the groceries out of the car while I talk to Robbie?"

Glanni's nose crinkled. Mama _glared,_ and then Robbie watched the man slump, roll his eyes, and stalk towards the door. He muttered something that sounded not quite English, not quite _any_ language, and the understanding of it was nearly in Robbie's grasp, so he could only assume Glanni was speaking in Seelie tongue. He was more puzzled by the red shade his Mama's cheeks took, and the way her eyes widened for a second before she went back to glaring at the back of Glanni's head.

As soon as he was out the door, she turned to face Robbie, lips coming to form a smile instead of the frown she'd been wearing since coming home.

"What did he say?" Robbie asked. "Was it magic?"

Mama shook her head. "No, _that_ was vulgarity, which I do _not_ want you learning." She reached across the counter and took Robbie's hand in hers, squeezing gently. Her eyes swept up and down his body, and Robbie almost felt uncomfortable under her sudden scrutiny. After a quiet moment, she said softly, "Robbie, I'm sorry, I meant to prepare you better before he arrived... did his glamour hurt you?"

Robbie's brow furrowed, and it took him a moment to recall when Glanni arrived at the school draped in piercing pink and the faintest shimmer of something dark blue around his shoulders, obscured like the haze above a bonfire. It took him by surprise to realize that even in the half an hour since school was let out, he'd... forgotten? As if seeing Glanni had been like a bad dream only vaguely remembered in the morning.

"It's..." Robbie tried to find the words, and they came slowly. "Muddled? I don't... I don't _think_ it hurt, not badly at least." His other hand gestured plaintively at the door through which Glanni had disappeared. "It wasn't like the woods. He wasn't... focusing, I think." Or were shadows and self-glamours different? Was making oneself disappear more or less painful to others than just obscuring part of your form?

As Robbie languished in thought, Mama sighed heavily, and reached out to brush her knuckles over his face. As her thumb caressed the tip of his chin, she pressed down ever so slightly, and Robbie felt warmth spread up through his jaw. His ears popped, his nose tickled, and his eyelids felt suddenly heavy, if only for a split second before he returned to being awake. The warmth collected on his tongue, then faded down his throat until it was gone, and with it, the pain behind his eyes.

"Better?" Mama asked.

Robbie tested, thinking back to the school, and-

In the memory, the pink wasn't quite so vibrant, certainly not enough to overwhelm the dark blue of the wings sprouting from Glanni's back through slits in his furred coat. With each gesture, tilt of his head, and occasional strange bow, the man's wings were present, and his eyes were far darker, and his teeth just the slightest bit sharper. Robbie rubbed his no longer throbbing temple and glanced over at his mama. "Is that how _you_ see him?"

"That's how he _is,"_ Mama answered, "always. Glanni's like you, my sweetheart."

"Half-fairy?"

Mama pursed her lips. "A little more than half, I think." She shrugged her scarf away from her shoulders, and as it fell, her face contorted for a moment before luminous, dark golden wings emerged from beneath her blouse. Robbie's eyes widened and flicked from one dark spot on the silky surface to the next as his mama continued, "I don't know why he wasn't more _careful_ at the school... it doesn't take much to fool a human, he shouldn't have made the glamour so strong it would affect you, too."

Robbie bit his lip. "Why do glamours even hurt in the first place?"

Her hand squeezed his again. "They only hurt those who fight them, same with wards."

"But I didn't fight it!"

"Maybe not on purpose," she admitted, "but you _knew,_ and that's usually enough. Once your mind knows a glamour is there, it will do everything it can to try and unravel it, unless you keep yourself in check."

"But _you_ glamour yourself," Robbie countered. "And the house. And those don't hurt me."

"That's because your mama weaves you into them from the get-go," Glanni's voice abruptly - and loudly - interrupted as he kicked the front door inwards and strode inside armed with several bags of groceries. The man dropped one bag onto the ground with a loud _clang_ that sounded like cans of chicken noodle soup, and the rest were shoved onto the counter next to the sink. Dusting his hands off, Glanni started to take off his coat, though not before nudging Ana in the side with his elbow. "Most fairies don't bother worrying about how their magic affects other fairies, since their Courts do all the deciding of what they see and what they don't. So most of the time, they don't use glamours except to screw with humans."

"Glanni, _language."_ Mama elbowed Glanni back, making him stumble a bit as he wormed his arm out of his coat sleeve.

The man scoffed. "Please, he's-"

"Nine," Robbie supplied.

Glanni nodded, then gave Ana a pointed look. "He's _nine_ , he can handle a little swearing. Trust me, when I was his age-"

"I shudder to think of what you were like at his age," Mama muttered. "As much a terror then as you are now, I assume."

Glanni huffed and tossed his coat onto the sofa before he sat himself down in the orange recliner in the center of the living room. He stretched his arms above his seat as he sank into the fur of the chair, and his joints gave off an audible _crack._ "I _should_ resent such comments," he said with a wry smirk, "but since you're being so kind as to let me stay over in this lovely house, I'll let it slide."

"I - hold on, you are _not-"_

"I _am_." Glanni leaned back in the recliner until it was almost lying flat and closed his eyes, letting out a low yawn. "Unless you want to subject some miserable human hotel manager to my presence." At this, one of his eyelids parted halfway open, eyeing Ana with the same inconsiderate smugness that populated his smirk. " _You_ invited me, Ana, so you've no one to blame but yourself for this."

Mama rolled her eyes. "Fine, but you're sleeping down here."

Glanni grinned, all teeth. "See, I knew you cared about me."

Mama scowled. "You'll do your own laundry. And keep the swearing to a minimum."

He waved a hand dismissively, and Robbie gathered the conversation wasn't going to progress any further from there. As his Mama turned around and started pulling groceries from the plastic bags, Robbie stayed with elbows planted on the counter, side-eying Glanni as the man seemed to melt a bit into the orange recliner. The house fell quiet, save for the moving of his mama throughout the kitchen, and at some point Robbie guessed that Glanni fell asleep, as his breaths seemed to get deeper, and the ambient magic around him seemed to grow tense.

"Sweetheart," Mama spoke up after five or so minutes, "don't you have homework to do?"

Oh. Right. Reaching down from the stool, Robbie pulled his backpack up onto the counter and dug out his history notebook.

There would be time for magic later.

 

* * *

 

"You're _unbelievable,"_ Ana muttered to Glanni after she put Robbie to bed that night.

Glanni rubbed his neck, cracking it a few times. "You're still surprised, after all this time?"

Ana folded her arms across her chest and stared at Glanni with frustration. "You strut around like a peacock with that glamour, I'm shocked you aren't glowing _neon._ Every bit of advice I give you goes in one ear and out the other, doesn't it?"

"Hey, it's not a problem so long as I keep on the move," Glanni said with a shrug. "I'll only be here a few days. A week, at most."

The house was already dimly lit, with only a light on in the hallway and a table lamp in a corner of the living room, but Ana could feel the shadows deepen around Glanni as he spoke, and while the temperature in the house remained the same, the air seemed to thicken for a moment. It barely had an effect on her, but it was still noticeable.

Ana issued a sigh and rubbed her temple, and let slip a faint smile.

"I'm glad you're here, Glanni," she murmured. "And I'm glad you answered my letter. Especially after you didn't answer the last twelve."

Glanni snorted, edge of his mouth twitching in a way that seemed almost normal, but was... off, somehow. "I have a busy schedule."

"Glanni, it's been  _four years."_

"Busy four years," he muttered ruefully, slowly wandering across the room back towards the sofa he'd claimed as his bed. "I set up in this city up in Iceland. Had a pretty nice gig going for the last six years. Local law are absolute morons, so the first two years were good, and then I had to come help you get out of the Court..." He slumped down onto the sofa, eyes staring off distractedly into some empty space near Ana's head. "That was probably one of my bigger fuck-ups. Not that I mind, I'm glad you and Robbie are out of there."

She sat down in the chair next to him, hands clasped in her lap, brow furrowing. "Glanni, what are you talking about?"

He laughed, and the sound rang all wrong in Ana's ears.

"New addition to the law enforcement showed up in the month I was gone," he growled under his breath, running a hand through his hair. He side-eyed Ana, lids heavy over his harsh blue eyes, and his makeup almost looked smeared. It hadn't been, a minute ago, and for a brief second Ana saw a ripple over Glanni's form, as a cosmetic glamour in his skin almost gave up the secrets it was concealing.

"...what new addition?" Ana asked warily.

Glanni stared at her out of the corner of his eye, and smirked. "Oh, you know, your typical brash vigilante type. All muscles and bravado and backflips. Oh, and the local kids just  _loved_ his fancy balloon. And the  _airship_ that came by that one time." 

Ana felt her heart skip several beats, and at the same time, her wings felt like they wanted to shrivel up and hide beneath her rib cage.

"You-" The light in the room sputtered as her tone darkened. "An  _elf_ showed up and you didn't think to  _tell_ me??"

The corner of Glanni's mouth twitched. "I handled it."

"Bull _shit-"_

"Hey, don't chide me on  _my_ language if you're going to do  _that,"_ Glanni muttered, swinging his legs over the side of the sofa and leaning forward with his hands braced on his knees. His grin returned, despite his eyes looking more hollow than Ana had ever seen them. "Last I saw of him, his balloon was free-falling into a lake, so he's not a problem. For now. Plenty of time to teach your kid a few of my tricks."

Ana kept so still in her chair that she might as well have been a statue. By the time her tongue found its purpose again, Glanni had rolled over to face the back of the sofa and pulled the blanket she'd given him all the way up around his head. She could tell by his silence, and by the stiff rhythm of his breathing, that he wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon, and that she would also get no more explanation out of him tonight.

She sat staring at Glanni's immobile form for a few more minutes before she forced herself to stand up. Before she returned to her own bedroom, she went to each door and window in the house, examining the wards Glanni had put in place - more for her own reassurance than out of any worry that they were flawed.

If there was one thing she knew about fairies on the run from elves, they never cut corners when it came to their wards.

Perhaps it was good that Robbie had taken up an interest in Glanni's form of magic. It was stronger than hers, and would better protect him if-

_NO._

No, she couldn't think like that. Glanni would move on soon enough, and take his curse with him.

All the same, Ana stopped by Robbie's room again before going to bed, gave him another kiss goodnight, and knit another layer of wards over his window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the comments and kudos! Hopefully I'll be able to update this consistently, I ain't letting it die on me like so many other fanfics have before


	3. Chapter 3

"You've been here all of a day," Ana said in bewilderment, "how did you even _find_ this place?"

"It was part of some old industrial steel plant that got torn down a decade ago," Glanni answered, as if it should be obvious.

"...you went snooping through the town archives, didn't you? How did you get in?"

"Broke into the mayor's office last night, actually. Don't worry, no one noticed. I can't believe this town doesn't even have a real police station, it's _hilarious._ "

Robbie heard his mama let out a squawk of indignation at the mention of breaking and entering, but he was less trying to concentrate on their conversation, and more on the slightly slimy rungs of the ladder Glanni was leading them down. Earlier that day, at breakfast, he'd been overjoyed when Glanni proposed having their first magic lesson, and the whole day at school Robbie had been itching for class to end so he could get home.

He was slightly less enthusiastic now that he saw _where_ exactly Glanni had decided that lesson would be held. Robbie had assumed Glanni would just be teaching him at home, but apparently the man had other ideas. Mama didn't exactly seem surprised by the whole endeavor, but Robbie got the sense that she was a little annoyed by Glanni's choice of teaching location, and Robbie could see why.

He didn't know _that_ much about fairies, but he did know they liked to be where they could see the sky, so he guessed Mama wasn't too fond of being underground.

As for Glanni... he seemed to be enjoying dragging them down the ladder into the darkness. Robbie would've been paralyzed with fright, if it weren't for the comforting orange glow of a fae wisp, crafted by his mama and circling around them as they descended. It gave off a soft, murmuring hum as it spun near his head, like someone singing through several closed doors.

"Shouldn't be much further," Glanni said from below Ana and Robbie. A few moments later, there was a dull _thud,_ and Robbie looked down to see Glanni stepping away from the ladder, dusting his hands on his pants.

Ana stepped off the ladder next, holding out her arms for Robbie as he made his way down last, hands slow to release each rung and move to the next. "Be careful, sweetheart, the last couple rungs are a bit slippery," Mama urged. The look in her eyes suggested that the memory of the time Robbie fell off the monkey bars was filling up her mind and making her a little more cautious than usual.

Glanni groaned. "Gods' sake, Ana, he's _four feet_ off the ground."

Robbie decided to jump off the ladder rather than step on the last couple rungs. The ground squelched below his feet, and he looked down to see a layer of dead, somewhat decomposed leaves littering the concrete. He wondered where they'd come from - there weren't any trees near the entrance to this place. He felt a faint gust of wind flowing from off to his right, and the air around his legs felt far colder than the air up on the surface.

He was starting to see why Glanni had elected to wear a black turtleneck down here. It was _freezing._

Glanni pointed up into the darkness, towards the ceiling that Robbie knew had to be there, but wasn't quite visible. "Ana, the light."

By this point, Ana had cupped the wisp in her hands, and its glow cast sharp shadows up her face, making her glare look far more frightening than Robbie thought it was intended to be. " _You're_ supposed to be the one teaching him, why not start with this?"

Glanni looked away for a moment, and Robbie could swear the man was pouting when he looked back. "Because light wisps aren't exactly my forte, remember? Will you just light the damn room?"

Ana sighed and tossed the wisp upwards. Robbie followed it as it rose, and he distantly heard the sound of his mama uttering soft words to herself, and the wisp's glow intensified. Orange spread through the air, illuminating a large underground room with several gated tunnels sunken into the floor, branching off from the main complex. Glancing behind him, Robbie found that there were some old boilers pressed up against the back wall, and scattered cardboard boxes and a few stray nails.

"What exactly is this place, Glanni?" Mama asked as the glow finally crept into most of the dark spots in the room.

"It connects up with an old part of the Lazytown sewer system," Glanni explained. "Didn't bother reading up on what the complex was used for, exactly. I just know it's abandoned and no one goes near it, since apparently it got closed down thanks to a bug infestation."

The back of Robbie's neck crawled. "...bugs?"

Glanni grinned. "Don't worry, kid, I checked it out while you were at school, there's nothing down here but some old rusty machinery." Clapping his hands together, his grin broadened, and he said cheerily, as he _weren't_ standing in a creepy abandoned sewer system, "Now, your mama tells me you want to learn how to disappear. This is the place to learn it; nowhere you can hide, except in plain sight."

"...but how do I know if I even _have_ magic yet?" Robbie asked tentatively.

"Trust me, kid," Glanni said, "you've got it. Not a lot yet, but it's there. You've been watching mine since I got here, haven't you?"

Robbie felt his cheeks heat up. "I, um... y-yes? Is that... was I not supposed to do that?"

Glanni shrugged, starting to walk in a slow circle around Robbie and Ana. With each step he took, his feet seemed to become harder to see. "If I _really_ wanted you to not see it, you wouldn't have."

Robbie gulped.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders, kid," Glanni said, still walking. Robbie took a nervous step back and pressed up against his mama as the man started to tighten the circle, walking towards them from the side. He knew Glanni was a friend, he knew the man wouldn't hurt him, but whatever bit of magic that was awake inside him was insisting that he be _careful._ "You know when there's glamours around you, and I'm pretty sure you could even pull off one of your own, if you tried, but I'd rather start you off with something simple."

"What, pray tell, is _simple_ according to you?" Mama asked over Robbie's head.

Glanni's eyes glittered. " _This._ " He snapped his fingers.

As Robbie stared, Glanni's shadow crawled up his legs and wrapped around his body until his shape was nothing but darkness; then, in a split second, the shadow vanished, taking Glanni along with it. Robbie heard his mama suck in a sharp breath, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder, fingers curling into his shirt protectively. The both of them kept their eyes locked on the room, now empty of one Glanni Glæpur.

Robbie _watched._

Glanni was gone, but there was... _something._ Tugging at the corner of his eye. The same something that made his stomach twist into knots when Glanni showed up at his school; and further back in his memory, when the roots were trying to catch him in the forest.

Slowly glancing behind himself, Robbie's gaze fell upon his own shadow.

The moment he looked, he saw it _twist,_ and something rose out of it, still behaving like it was blurry in his peripheral vision despite him looking directly at it. A hand reached out from the growing darkness, and ruffled his hair, just as a set of large white teeth and gray eyes became visible again. The teeth grinned, and the hand trailed down to Robbie's cheek, patting twice and _stinging_ both times.

He felt something _surge_ inside. Something like the pink that danced on Glanni's fingertips. A muscle memory, not his own, but... _given_ to him.

Glanni's face came fully into view, smiling fiercely.

"Your turn, kid," he said. "Let's see what you can do."

On instinct, Robbie gave his mama a nervous look. She pursed her lips, but only for a moment before she removed her hand from his shoulder and stepped back, giving her son an uncertain, but dutiful, nod of encouragement.

Robbie beamed, and snapped his fingers.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Robbie _still_ felt like he was coughing up sandpaper.

His mama hadn't so much as let him out of her sight, keeping him downstairs on the sofa, bundled up in blankets and as close to the heater as possible. She'd taken to not sleeping straight through the last couple of nights, instead napping whenever she could, and always nearby in case she needed to help Robbie get to the bathroom before he threw up on the floor again.

Right now, she was adjusting the soft heating pad on his chest while once again muttering about _stupid_ the whole situation was.

"Of _all_ the places for your magic to wake up, and _backfire_ ," she groused, raising her voice a bit, "it has to be in a near freezing, likely bacteria-infected underground grotto."

Something clattered in the kitchen. "I _said_ I was sorry! What more do you want, woman??"

"I would _like_ for my son's fever to break!" she shouted over her shoulder. Robbie winced at the sudden rise in volume. "You pushed him too far, Glanni! And I can't believe I _let_ you..."

Robbie's eyes wandered slowly over to the kitchen, where Glanni was busying himself trying to make amends by preparing chicken noodle soup for lunch. Robbie wasn't sure if it was the fever, or if it was just how the air smelled, but he thought something might be burning on the stove. "How was I supposed to know that place had its own magic??" the man protested.

"We live on the border of a _Court!_ Maybe you should have checked it more thoroughly before you let it _invite_ _untethered magic into my son!"_

"Mumma," Robbie said sluggishly around the thermometer in his mouth, "ish okay." Their fighting made his ears ring, and honestly, he _did_ feel a little bit better than he had when it all first happened, so there wasn't much point in them arguing about it anymore. Between the lingering fuzziness in his brain, and their voices, it was so hard for him to remember what happened, and he _wanted_ to.

So far, all his mind had been able to scrounge up was Glanni swearing profusely, Robbie collapsing under the invading force of something _cold-_

Ana brushed her fingers through Robbie's hair. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she murmured, eyes still red and sore-looking from sleep deprivation.

"'m okay."

She smiled weakly. "Oh, Robbie..." The thermometer beeped, and Robbie watched her expression carefully as she took it out of his mouth. Her brow slackened as she looked at the readout, and he thought her shoulders might have slumped a bit before she sighed. "Hundred and two. It's going down, at least..."

"Told you," Robbie said, still tasting metal.

Heavy footsteps stomped over to the sofa, and Glanni arrived carrying a tray of somewhat suspicious looking soup and a plate of butter crackers. Robbie could've sworn the man looked guilty, but he assumed it was just his fever playing tricks on him. "Here you go, kid," Glanni mumbled, setting the tray down on the sofa next to the heavily cocooned child.

Robbie picked at the crackers, trying not to make it obvious that he was avoiding the soup, which had a slightly different color than normal. Glanni didn't seem to notice, and sat himself cross-legged on the floor near Mama, picking at his nails again while she finished tucking the heating pad underneath Robbie's shirt. After a minute of silence, the man asked, "You still cold?"

"...not so much," Robbie answered with a half-shrug. "Tired, mostly."

"Too much magic does that to a person," Glanni said. "Thought I'm surprised it burnt you out _that_ quick..."

"How quick?" He'd tried to remember. He couldn't.

Mama's brow furrowed again. "Your shadow, it - it _started_ to cloak you, but it... _stopped_ , and then you collapsed..." She fumbled over her words in a way that was entirely alien to Robbie, and he wished so badly that his arms weren't such limp noodles right now, he wanted to hug her and make sure she _knew_ he was okay, he wasn't dead, he was a little less than fine but he wasn't _dead-_

"I'll start you on something small next time," Glanni said, "like wards. Wards are simple enough to learn. Hard to master, but I don't think you're going to need to be crafting expert tier wards anytime soon, you've got time to practice."

Mama glowered darkly at Glanni. "You're seriously thinking about this _now."_

"Sooner rather than later, right?"

"He's still sick!"  
  
"I'm not saying that he needs to start right this _second,_ I'm just saying I should've tried wards before shadowstepping!"

Robbie listened to their bickering for as long as he could stand before he mustered a very forceful yawn, and they both fell silent and made a show of looking away from each other. Mama kept petting Robbie's hair, and Glanni just sat with his arms folded like a petulant child, muttering gibberish under his breath. Robbie could almost reach out and touch the tension in the room, and it only made his stomach feel worse.

"...'s not all bad," he said quietly.

Mama raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean, sweetheart?"

"I mean, all hurts, and whatever..." He managed something resembling a smile. "But I know my magic color now."

Off to the side, Glanni chuckled a bit. Mama sat forward on her knees, looking at Robbie curiously. "You do?" she asked softly. "What is it?"

He grinned more solidly this time, and it felt like some of the remaining queasiness in his stomach disappeared.

"Purple."

 

* * *

 

As soon as Robbie was asleep that night - it took damn long enough, he was fidgeting until almost 11 - Ana took Glanni by the hand and practically dragged him over to the single light still on in the kitchen.

"What're you - _dammit_ , _Ana -"_

She pointed at the stool. "Sit."

Glanni considered ignoring her for a moment, but he climbed onto it in the end, hunching over as he tried to pry his arm from her surprisingly strong grasp. He was dead tired, and by all rights Ana should have been in the same boat, but being pure fairy she didn't necessarily need to to adhere to the same sleep schedule as Glanni and Robbie. She probably could've carried him upstairs to a proper bed, if she'd felt so inclined, and he wouldn't have had much energy to resist.

As soon as he was sitting down, she turned his hand over and pulled up his sleeve. Glanni bit down a hiss as the skin was exposed to the air, red and blistering and bearing an unsettling shade of inky black on the undersides of his knuckles. It kept trailing up his veins, making them far more prominent than usual, and continued past his elbow, out of sight beneath his shirt.

Ana balked. "How badly did you - you didn't _tell_ me - shirt off. _Now_."

Glanni scowled. "I'm  _fine."_

"So help me, Glanni, I _will_ cut your sleeve off if that's what it takes," she snapped.

Begrudgingly, Glanni worked his shirt off over his head, wincing as the fabric slid over the harsh burns on his right hand. He was keenly aware of Ana's eyes upon him the whole time, scrutinizing his not-exactly-muscular frame as he laid the shirt down onto the counter. Her attention was focused primarily on his arm, trailing up and down with increasing alarm.

"You should've told me about this _immediately,_ " Ana whispered, hand cupping over the inside of Glanni's wrist and pressing gently on the point of magic that laid underneath his cracked, itching skin. A soft orange glow emanated from her palm, and as it wafted up over his arm, he felt a wave of relief come crashing over him, and he couldn't help but sag against the counter with a shuddering breath.

"You were otherwise occupied."

Ana pursed her lips, but didn't take her eyes off his wrist. "Robbie's fever isn't going to _kill_ him."

"And _this_ isn't going to kill _me,_ " Glanni muttered, gesturing limply at the burnt arm with his other hand. "I've survived worse, you _know_ that."

Ana still didn't look up, eyelids nearly closed in concentration. Her hand slowly drifted up Glanni's arm, lightly touching the darkened veins until she reached his elbow. Once there, she twisted her hand and gently pinched the skin inside the crook of his arm, and the pain subsided even further, along with the putrid discoloration of the flesh. The burns were _agonizingly_ slow to heal, but they were certainly mending faster than they would have if Glanni had tried to fix them on his own.

"I know you have," she eventually replied, her voice a little strained, "but I'd rather you _not_ go setting a bad example for Robbie. Hiding injuries isn't smart."

"I personally pissed off an elf," Glanni remarked with a trace of bitterness, "I think we can scratch 'smart' off my list of personal qualities."

Ana didn't dignify his sarcasm with a response. Instead, she sucked in a deep breath, and pressed her thumbs into Glanni's wrist and elbow. The orange glow in her palms oozed into his veins, seeping down all the way to bone. With all her efforts concentrated on Glanni, Ana let her self-glamour drop, and her wings emerged once again, shrouding her like a translucent cloak.

Glanni's arm felt like it was being submerged in an ice bath, but underneath the numbness, he felt the pain fade away. As Ana's magic withdrew inside her, and her hands fell from his arm, he was left staring at a limb that was not nearly so burnt looking as it had been a minute ago. Some of the redness lingered, but the magic-induced blisters were gone, as were the dark patches on his fingers.

He flexed his hand. Yep. Pain gone... numbness overwhelming, and extremely welcomed.

"Thanks, Ana."

When she didn't answer, Glanni looked up from his arm, and caught her staring at his chest. Her brow was knit with a look that was usually reserved for Robbie, and _only_ Robbie. Clearly still weak from expending her magic to heal Glanni, she swallowed and pointed at the off-color smattering of scars on his chest, which hadn't yet been concealed by a glamour. "Are those recent?"

He sniffed. "Recent enough."

"...the elf?"

"What can I say? He likes it rough." He scratched the side of his neck. "Frankly, I'm surprised the _hickeys_ didn't scar over..."

The look on Ana's face was somewhere between horror, confusion, and possibly revulsion. "You -  _what??"_

"You fucked a human," Glanni quickly countered, "I don't think you get to judge me on my lo - my sex life." 

Ana's face went so pale she might as well have been a ghost. "That's - that's - an elf and a human are two _entirely_ different things!! That human didn't pose a threat to my life! Have you learned _nothing??_ " 

Glanni winced at her raised voice, still hoarse from the strain of healing him, and he had to count himself lucky for her somewhat weakened state, or else he might have left this conversation with more bruises than he had when it  _started._ "I've learned plenty," he said lowly, hissing as Ana seemed to reflexively squeeze his wrist, thought it may have been intentional, and intentionally  _painful._ "It was working just fine until that joint con with Mayhemtown got out of hand..."

"Gods, Glanni, what did you  _do?"_

Glanni felt a headache threatening; if he was to have _any_ hope of sleeping tonight, this conversation needed to end, right now. "Ana, for fuck's sake, just leave it, okay?"

They stared each other down for a minute or so in the kitchen, and the narrowing in Ana's eyes told Glanni that she, _in no way,_ was planning to leave this alone, but salvation came in the sound of Robbie coughing on the couch. Ana sent him one last piercing glower, and said stiffly, "Take my bed tonight. I'll stay down here, you need to get your sleep."

She turned and walked over to the couch before he had a chance to thank her, or apologize for swearing, or spill everything about that _fucking elf._

Whatever. At least the noise stopped.

Glanni pulled his shirt back on, hissed against the aching throughout his whole body, and trudged his way upstairs.

He only just barely made it onto the bed before he passed out completely.

 

* * *

 

It took a week for Robbie to fully recover from the effects of loose magic bombarding his system - and he _still_ couldn't quite remember everything that happened after he'd snapped his fingers - but almost as soon as he was confident that his magic was back in check, Glanni was raring to continue their lessons. This time, Mama insisted they stay inside the house. When Robbie had asked why Glanni was so eager to get back to teaching him, the only explanation he was offered was that Glanni needed to leave soon.

To say that Robbie was disappointed to see Glanni go was a _massive_ understatement, so he practically glued himself to the man for the remainder of his stay.

As promised to Ana, Glanni avoided any sort of shadow-related magic, and instead tried to teach Robbie how to shape his own wards. It was significantly more difficult for Robbie to learn those, considering that creating them involved a lot of visualization and a lot of sitting in absolute silence while Glanni took his wrists and wove tiny bits of his own wards into Robbie's magic. Which was, for the first several days, the _only_ thing he did.

"Um. Glanni."

The man looked up at him for a brief moment before looking back down at Robbie's wrist. "Yeah, kid?"

"What, um. What are you actually doing?"

"Conditioning your magic, so it knows what wards _feel_ like, from the inside out," Glanni answered. "Which I should've done from the get go so your magic didn't overwhelm you down in the grotto."

"Oh."

Glanni's lips pressed firmly together. "Yeah. Now pipe down, kid, I need to focus."

Robbie obediently shut up and spent the rest of their session concentrating on _purple._

 

* * *

 

"Okay, kid, just - stand there, and when - you know what my magic feels like, right?"

Robbie nodded hesitantly. "Yes?"

Glanni clapped his hands together. "Good. Okay. If you feel it coming _at_ you, try and raise your wards."

"...okay." They'd only been practicing for half a week. He knew he _had_ magic, he just didn't know if it liked him enough yet to _listen_ to him.  One way or another, they'd find out right about now.

The grin on Glanni's face was just shy of malicious. For some reason, Robbie expected him to say 'ready', or something like that, to give Robbie a heads up that magic would be sent his way, but-

Instead, he felt it _crawl up through his nose and down his throat._

Robbie gagged, eyes watering and vision going fuzzy for a second.

Almost as soon as it'd started, the jarring sensation vanished. Robbie wobbled on his feet, but sure enough, Glanni came rushing over, grabbing him by the shoulders to steady him. The dizziness disappeared quickly enough, as did the churning in his stomach. Robbie _really_ didn't want to throw up again.

"Crap," Glanni muttered, examining Robbie's face intensely. "That should've... and I was being _careful..."_

"Sorry," Robbie said quietly.

"Not your fault, kid." The man's brow furrowed. "Maybe you're just not a caster..."

Robbie froze. "But - but I have magic!"

"I know, I know," Glanni said, standing up and scratching his chin thoughtfully. "But not every fairy _casts._ Some have to enchant. Most true fae, like your mom, they cast their spells, and she's _damn_ good at it, so it just... didn't occur to me that you might be different."

That didn't sound... _entirely_ terrible. Robbie bit his lip, craning his neck back to look up at the man looming over him. "How does enchanting work?"

"You put magic in things ahead of time, and make them cast for you," Glanni explained. "Some fae use pendants, some use dust or weapons. They always use something they like, so it's easier to make the magic stick." He looked around the living room curiously. "How about it, kid? What stuff do you like?"

Robbie's brain immediately suggested _cake and ice_ _cream,_ but he doubted food was something he could enchant.

After a minute's thought, he said, "Machines. Machines are cool."

Glanni gave him an odd look. "...cool, yes, but _way_ too complicated for a first time enchanter."

Robbie wilted, feet shuffling anxiously underneath him.

"How about clothes?" Glanni suddenly suggested. "Your mom makes a lot of yours, so they probably already have _some_ magic."

He knew they did. He could feel it, like his mama always had her hand on his shoulder. Usually when he was wearing sweaters, or wrapped up in the purple blanket. "You really think that'll work?" he asked.

"I'm not leaving until I _know_ it does," Glanni assured. 

Robbie grinned and sprinted upstairs to find a sweater.

 

* * *

 

After several failed attempts, and one slightly charred t-shirt, it was finally _Glanni_ who stumbled and got dizzy, not Robbie.

It was fitting that Ana returned from shopping at that time, because Robbie wasn't sure if he could contain his excitement until she got home. Almost as soon as she walked through the door, he barreled into her and wrapped his arms around her waist, shrieking, "Mom! Mom! I did it! I cast magic! I put it into the sweater and I made it _listen_ to me and  _I_ _can make wards now!"_

Ana staggered from the force of the hug, then bent down to collect her son into her arms, lifting him up and sitting him on her hip. She could feel the flow of magic in the slightly-too-small sweater he was wearing, and in the corner of her eye could see Glanni slowly hauling himself up off the floor with a faint wheeze.

"I _did_ it," Robbie kept babbling, "I did it, I did it, I did it-!"

Ana kissed his forehead, and smiled. "I always knew you would, sweetheart."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...this fic feels like it's going to turn out longer than originally intended. Might be time to get back to our regularly scheduled timeskips xD


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter this time.
> 
> In which Glanni makes Ana worry. Again.

Before Glanni left, he took Ana aside in the hallway - it was somewhere near 4 AM and neither of them wanted to wake Robbie - and took her hand tightly. She looked at their clasped fingers with a note of suspicion, which faded quickly to worry when Glanni softly said, "His name's Íþróttaálfurinn."

Ana's eyes widened. "Glanni-"

"It doesn't matter if I say it," he hastily explained, "his crystal's already got me in its memory. Long story. Involved a lot of hard liquor. Just... be careful, in case he comes here looking for me. He can fool people into thinking he's not an elf, but he doesn't like to change his name, thinks it's cool or something. He's a showoff like that, but he's persistent. So just keep an eye out, okay?"

Ana was slow to nod, her throat feeling unusually constricted. " _How_ persistent is he? If you had him under control, what changed?"

Glanni averted his gaze, staring at anything that wasn't Ana's face. "Got too used to him turning a blind eye, I guess. Then again, bit of a difference between shoplifting and poisoning."

" _Poison-"_

"It wasn't supposed to get as bad as it did," Glanni muttered. "Just - be careful. And don't tell Robbie until he gets better at wards."

A dozen questions lingered on the tip of Ana's tongue, but she knew Glanni well enough to know that none of them would receive answers if she pressed him before he was ready. "I won't," she assured quietly. "Are you sure you can't stay until morning and say goodbye?"

"I'm sure." He worked his fingers out of hers, and for a moment she fought to keep them for a little while longer. "Remind him to take it slow, and keep practicing, and don't try too much all at once."

Ana bit the inside of her lower lip. "You can always come back here, Glanni. You know that."

He snorted weakly. "Not always. But thanks."

Then his fingers snapped, his shadow warped, and Ana was left standing alone in the hall.

 

* * *

 

Robbie woke up to find the house a little quieter than it had been for the past couple of weeks, and knew even before he got downstairs that he would find Mama alone, either silent or humming softly to herself. He let himself hope for a second that maybe his ears just weren't working, and he'd find her engaged in light banter or muffled discussion with a half-fae man with questionable tastes in clothing and teaching methods.

By the time he got to the kitchen, and saw her cooking omelets on her own, he'd already given up on that faint hope.

"...is he coming back?" was all he asked as he shuffled into the living room, still in pajamas and mismatched socks.

Mama jumped mid-flip of an omelet, nearly missing the pan, but just salvaging it before breakfast ended up on the floor. "You're up early," she observed.

"Couldn't sleep."

She narrowed her eyes. "Robbie, what have I said about staying up all night?"

 _That Courts prey on fatigued magic, and turn it against you, and sometimes magic does it on its own._ "Sorry," he mumbled unconvincingly. "Glanni said I should practice."

"I understand that, and I'm proud of you for putting in the effort, but you still need your sleep."

Robbie pulled himself onto a stool and started playing with a fork, digging it into the counter mindlessly. Mama didn't seem to care - there were already far too many scratched and dents in the marble - and just focused on the omelet, carefully folding it over and then sliding it onto a plate. She cut it in half and slid one portion over to Robbie, along with a couple slices of oranges that he ignored.

"Is he coming back?" Robbie asked a second time.

It looked like Mama tried to hide the way her hands wrung as she pondered Robbie's question, but she wasn't doing a very good job of it. Robbie could clearly see the whitening of her knuckles, the way her fingernails dug into her palm, and the presence of new, very tiny scars on the inside of her wrist from heavy exertion of magical healing. He almost asked _why_ there were new cuts; she hadn't been healing him, so it had to have been Glanni, but why?

In the end, he kept his mouth shut, and opened it only to shovel in forkfuls of omelet.

"I don't know," Mama answered quietly.

Robbie swallowed. "I hope he does."

The edge of Mama's mouth twitched. "I hope so, too."

 

* * *

 

Glanni _did_ come back, a few times. Always out of the blue, always after months of no correspondence whatsoever, and always for a short time. A few days, mostly, but sometimes more than a week.

Robbie noticed he came into town more carefully, usually unnoticed by the townsfolk, but he didn't think much of it. Mom probably talked him out of flashy entrances, though she didn't have a hope of coercing him into picking a less loud shade of pink for his coats. Most of their bickering tended to be about clothes, or Robbie, or how he was starting to learn to build little machines to hold magic, though as a year or so went by, they stopped bickering altogether.

Usually, when he sneaked downstairs to steal cookies from the pantry, he caught them sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, oblivious to his presence. They were always deep in quiet conversation, in a language he just barely recognized as fae speech. Both of them fell into the habit of keeping their wings visible, draped over their shoulders like damp towels.

They only caught Robbie spying once. He was getting _good_ at sneaking around.

For three straight years, Glanni always showed up for Robbie's birthday with some strange foreign treat; truffles, caramel, a box of cupcakes with gold leaf trim on his eleventh birthday. Mom complained that he was spoiling Robbie, and Glanni retorted that he didn't have any _other_ nephews to dote on, and that was the only friendly bickering Robbie ever saw them do anymore.

Then, a month before Robbie's thirteenth birthday, a letter stamped with pink wax arrived at their house.

Mom read it first, and although she stayed perfectly still and composed whilst reading it, a glass in the sink shattered. Robbie flinched and ducked his head as a small piece of glass came flying over his head, and he resolved to slowly inching his way over to the recliner, where his mother sat pale as snow with the letter in her hand.

"...Mom?" he asked slowly. "What is it?"

When she didn't answer, he crept around the recliner, leaning over her shoulder and scrutinizing the swooping cursive scrawled over the slightly crumpled paper. It was a short letter already, but before he even got done reading two sentences, he felt his chest tighten a bit.

Most of the letter, he understood, more or less. He didn't _like_ it, but he understood it. One part, however, stood out as being almost completely incomprehensible to him.

"Mom, who's Íþr-"

Faster than Robbie could blink, his mother's hand shot up and cupped over his mouth. He let out a muffled yelp, staring wide-eyed at his mother as she turned to face him with an expression Robbie could only describe as _distraught._

Her hand fell away from his mouth quickly. "I'm sorry, Robbie, I didn't mean to scare you, I just - you can't say his name."

Robbie wasn't even sure if he was _capable_ of pronouncing that mangled mess. "Why not?? Why can't Glanni come back?"

Mom bit her lip, shifting until she was kneeling on the recliner, facing backwards, her off-gold eyes level with her son's. "Robbie, how..." She glanced around the room, hands wringing into the orange fur of the chair again. "How well can you use your wards now?"

Oh. So _that's_ what she was looking at. "Pretty good," he answered suspiciously, "why?"

"Put them up. Please. And _keep_ them up."

"What's wrong with the house's wards?"

She gave him the _look._ He swallowed, then pulled inwards, and tugged at the cord of his hoodie. His wards sprang to life, not as tightly woven as his mother's, or as neatly concealed as Glanni's, but they were _there._ At the same time, he felt his mother's wards grow stronger, circling around both of them, but prioritizing Robbie. The house's wards seemed to swell as more magic filled the room.

As soon as the wards were established, Mom said, "You remember my rules, Robbie?"

She wasn't going to make him _list_ them, was she?? "Yeah."

"You remember my rule about elves?"

His brow furrowed. "Never trust them?"

"And never say their true names aloud," she said, taking Robbie by surprise. She'd never told him that part of the rule. "Writing them is risky enough, if you _say_ them... they _know."_

Robbie's eyes flicked to the letter, now lying crumpled on the seat next to Mom's knee. "...is that an elf name?"

She nodded, starting to brush a hand through his bangs. "Íþróttaálfurinn is his name," she whispered. Robbie thought he felt his ears pop when she said it. "Glanni told me before he left... I would've told you sooner, Robbie, but if you aren't careful, if your wards aren't strong enough... I didn't want to risk it. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I understand, but Mom - Mom, what does he want with Glanni?"

Her jaw visibly clenched. "I don't know, sweetheart. I wish to the gods that I did."

Robbie leaned into her hand, eyes still zeroed in on the letter. "He said..." He fumbled over the words, not quite believing himself when he read them, or said them out loud. "He _really_ doesn't want us to help him?"

Mom looked away. "He's never wanted _anyone_ to help him, Robbie. Trust me."

Robbie wondered if the acidic bitterness to her words was intentional. Given how she seemed to mother away at Glanni almost as much as she did Robbie... he guessed that she was very _much_ bitter.

His fingers curled into the orange fur, and he rested his chin on the top of the chair, staring - now escalated to glaring - at the letter, and getting angrier with every second. Mom came to rest her head on top of his, still stroking his hair, and he let the uneasy mix of anger and helplessness stew inside of him. Mom didn't need to hear an outburst right now, no matter how much better it would probably make him feel, so he just kept _glaring._

They stayed pressed up against the chair, in silence, for an hour at least before Mom finally told him _you should go outside for a bit, it's nice out, get some fresh air and please never say the elf's name out loud._

Robbie obeyed - he could tell Mom wanted to be  _alone -_ and went outside, away from the letter that he just wanted to read again and again until it made some fraction of sense to him.

He stayed out for as long as he could stand it. Truth be told, it was nice. The whole town was nice, pretty, _just fine and dandy._

_Nice and pretty and safe and far away from elves.  
_

Wherever Glanni was, he was the _opposite_ of that. Robbie wanted him to _be_ there, be back home with him and Mom, but there was _nothing he could do to fix it._

Robbie had never hated the sun and the smell of flowers and all the happy corners of the town as much as he did right now.

 

* * *

 

Long after Robbie was asleep - hopefully - Ana read the letter again.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Eventually it became too much. Balling her fist around the letter, she crumbled it and then tore it in half, and then regretted it half a second later. After straining her personal wards that morning, she was barely able to muster the energy to stitch the letter back together, and it ended up shoddily reformed into one piece, ink smudged slightly and corners ragged.

She made herself read it once more. Slowly.

 

> _Ana,_
> 
> _Tell Robbie I'm sorry, but I have to miss his birthday this year. I thought I had it under control again. Thought that stupid elf understood, but apparently not. He's after me again. I don't know when or if I'll be able to get back to you two, or if that's even a good idea. I don't want to rope you into this any more than I already have._
> 
> _Don't you dare try and help me. I'm pretty sure he's gone beyond just detaining me._
> 
> _Keep yourselves safe._
> 
> _\- G_

Her first thought: _please, gods, don't let the trail lead to Lazytown._

Her second thought: _He'll die if he fights an elf alone._

Pushing the letter away from her, Ana started pacing the length of the living room, wings fluttering restlessly and lifting her an extra inch or two off the ground with every step she took.

Ana's mind flashed back to her son's question earlier that day.

_"What does he want with Glanni?"_

A hundred nightmares, each remembered with too much clarity, prowled the recesses of her mind, taking turns flickering on the back of her eyelids each time she blinked. An elf... an elf could _want_ anything from a fairy, but most fairies had their homes in Courts, kept their names under close guard, and always had a quick escape back to a forest, or a way to call for more of their kind.

Glanni had none of that, not even a _name_  anymore, he'd slipped free of that noose long ago _._ Of course, without a true name, there was no chance anyone could use it against him, but it also meant he had one less possible way to defend himself. While he could be stronger without a name, there were ways he was weaker without it. Weaker than elves whose eyes glowed in the dark and whose crystals hummed the sound of other people's secrets, screamed other people's _pain._

A hungry elf could catch a reckless fairy and they wouldn't need to _want,_ they could _take. Anything._

Ana stopped pacing, hovering in place with her bare toes just barely in contact with the carpet.

Perhaps, if Glanni was a few decades younger, and still the way he was when Ana found him, he might've stood a fighting chance, but...

Ana shook herself. It was fruitless to imagine what _might_ have happened if Glanni had _been_ this, or _done_ that, instead of doing or being so many other things. There was only one thing she knew with absolute certainty.

Out of all the things Glanni _was,_ the most important was _family._ If not by blood, then by her own damn choosing, and by Robbie's choosing, and probably in some way, by Glanni's choosing as well.

Like _hell_ was she going to let him fight an elf alone.

Dropping down to the floor, Ana strode over to the window and unlatched it, throwing it open with a loud _thud._ She felt the wards tremble around the house, but they held steady. Ana cupped her hands in front of her chest and sucked in a deep breath, letting the air coil inside her lungs, scraping against the magic at her core, and when she exhaled, a pale orange light grew inside her hands. She funneled every remaining ounce of magic in her system into the ball of light, until it took on an audible hum, and its hue deepened.

Wisps were easy enough to make. Greater wisps - the arguably sentient ones - were more difficult, by far. She had to make it count.

Extending her arms out the window, she let the wisp spin, and ordered, "Find Glanni. Help him however you can. Blind the elf, or take his magic, or feed _your_ magic to Glanni, I don't care. Just keep him from getting himself killed... and if you can, bring him home." Her inner doubts struggled against the words, conjuring vivid mental images of her son, asleep upstairs, and before she let the connection snap, she added, "But do not lead the elf here. And do _not_ let him take you. Destroy yourself before he can."

The wisp pulsed, and Ana let her arms drop to her sides. With one final spin, the wisp went shooting off into the night sky, disappearing into the clouds.

She stood staring at the light as it vanished, heart heavy in her chest.

_Bring him home._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Robbie spends a birthday alone and his only present is suspicious back pains...

It didn't come as much of a surprise when Robbie's birthday arrived, and there was no surprise appearance of a dark-winged half-fae, no too-large smile or crass language to keep him company. What _did_ surprise him was that his Mom wasn't there, either. She took him aside three days before his birthday, chewing on her lip the same way _he_ did whenever he had something he didn't want to tell her, but would have to eventually.

"Robbie," she started haltingly, grasping his hands in hers, "do you think you can stay here on your own for a week?"

Robbie flinched, almost yanking his hands out of her grasp. "What??"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, I am, it's just-" Robbie had never seen his Mom at a genuine loss for words before. Fairies didn't _do_ that. "I - I want to take you with me, but I _can't."_ Her words came out strangled, and her eyes darted away from him. As he followed her gaze, her found himself staring at a table next to the sofa, and more importantly, at the crumpled letter still sitting on it, pinned beneath the foot of a small lamp.

"I'm sorry," she was still saying, breathlessly. "I wish there was another way, but you have to stay here, Robbie, it's-"

"-too dangerous," he finished, as it suddenly clicked in his head.

 _Glanni_.

"You're going to help Glanni," he said, voice strangely hoarse, "aren't you?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Yes."

Robbie wasn't sure whether to be relieved, or worried, or both. "Even though he asked us _not_ to?"

Her grip on his wrists tightened - not enough to hurt, but enough to convince him of her distress, and her determination. " _Especially_ because he asked us not to," she answered. Robbie had no idea what that was even supposed to _mean._ He wanted to help Glanni, _how could he not,_ but the man had told them to stay out of it and-

"Do you - do you even know where he _is?"_ he blurted.

Mom's tongue flicked over her lips. "I... maybe. There are places he... places  _we_ used to go, I can start looking there."

 _You told me to stay away from elves,_ _why are you going to **find** an elf-_

"It'd just be for a week," Mom assured, tone faltering. "Maybe a little longer. Not much more." Her hands were still gripping Robbie's with a strange mix of desperation and what he could only assume was dread. "I know you can take care of your own schoolwork, and I have some fae parchment in the junk drawer if you ever need to contact me. The pantry and fridge are already full, but I'll leave you money just in case... you know how to mend the houses wards, don't you?"

Just barely. "Yeah, I can do them, but Mom, what if - what if -" The words wouldn't come. They _tried,_ they fought their way up Robbie's throat, and they made it all the way onto his tongue, but they got stuck behind his tightly clenched teeth and sucked back inside with his increasingly rapid breath.

She finally let go of his hands, only to pull him into her chest and wrap her arms around him tightly.

"I know, sweetheart," she breathed. "But I have to try. I can't leave Glanni to face an elf on his own. Family doesn't do that."

Robbie felt his eyes sting, and realized there were tears running down his cheeks. He buried his face into his Mom's sweater and rubbed the ugly droplets away. "Be _careful,"_ he demanded, shivering. "Please, Mom."

She drew back, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"I will, Robbie. I promise."

 

* * *

 

She left the day before his birthday, after bringing him to school and talking with the teachers a bit. Robbie lingered within earshot, kicking the dirt off his shoes, while Mom quietly told them she needed to attend to a family emergency, and that another relative would be coming to stay with Robbie in the meantime. The teachers nodded along in understanding, and with every word, Robbie saw a flicker of gold spiral around his mom's fingers.

He'd be alone in the house. The teachers would ignore the fact that he always walked home from school, instead of getting picked up. So long as he kept his head down, and maintained the wards around the house, no one would notice anything amiss. His mom's magic would do the only thing that fairy glamours _could_ do; make the humans turn the other cheek, and mind their own business.

They wouldn't _care._ They'd take no notice of Robbie outside of school, and he'd be just fine without Mom around.

She finished her discussion with the teacher, came back over to Robbie, and knelt down in front of him.

"You be good, sweetheart," she whispered, "I'll be back soon. If you need me, write. The letters will know how to find me."

 _Don't die, please please **please** don't die, _ he wanted to say it so badly, but...

He settled for hugging her and didn't say anything when she left because he feared if he opened his mouth, he would just end up screaming.

 

* * *

 

Baking a cake turned out to be harder than Robbie anticipated. He followed the recipe as best he could, but at some point he must've miscalculated something, because the cake ended up overflowing at the edges of the pan, and sinking in the middle. He was just barely able to salvage it before it oozed all over the inside of the oven, but in the process, forgot to take the mixing spoon out of the frosting that he'd put into the microwave.

So here he was, sitting on the floor of the kitchen, sink cluttered with bowls and measuring cups, eating the cake out of the pan with his fingers, and trying to ignore the stench of burnt frosting wafting from the now slightly charred microwave.

Maybe Robbie could fix it before Mom came home. He'd gotten good at fixing machines. He was better at making them from scratch, so he knew all their pieces, but fixing was still relatively straightforward.

The cake tasted... decent. A bit chewy, more like a brownie than a cake to be perfectly honest, but it tasted good.

Digging out a sizable chunk of brownie-cake, Robbie smeared what remained of the unheated frosting over the top and then added a single store-bought caramel cube to the his confectionery masterpiece. He hadn't been able to find any candles, and he didn't think he could stomach any more burning smells, anyway, so he had to make do with glow stick he'd found in his backpack earlier.

"Happy birthday, me," Robbie mumbled.

 

* * *

 

 

> _Mom,_
> 
> _It's been two weeks. Did you find Glanni?_
> 
> _I love you._
> 
> _\- Robbie_
> 
>  

* * *

 

Robbie hated that he'd sounded so needy in the letter he'd sent Mom, but...

It'd been _two weeks._ He'd tried to keep the house tidy - wasn't hard, he mostly just stayed in his room or the kitchen, he didn't _dare_ go into his mom's room because it smelled like her magic and he'd start _crying_ like an _idiot -_ but there was only so much he had patience for. He managed to keep up laundry, for the most part, but aside from school he'd ended up wearing the same hoodie for days on end, and taken to sleeping in the orange recliner instead of his bedroom.

The days _dragged._

School was... not quite miserable, but very nearly. The chairs just didn't feel comfortable anymore, and the homework was either mind numbingly simple or unnecessarily complicated, with no healthy in-between. Robbie left as soon as he could, every day, but so far he considered it an achievement that he'd continued to go at all. His mom's wards, Glanni's wards, even his _own_ wards were strong enough to probably make his teachers ignore his absence, if he declined to show up.

He tested, one day. A Wednesday, his least favorite, as that was gym day and the monkey bars were always involved and he _hated_ them.

...the house phone didn't ring. No teachers showed up banging on the door, demanding explanations as to why he wasn't there.

The day after, he performed a second test, showing up as if nothing had happened, as if he'd been there the whole time.

The teachers didn't seem to notice the difference.

Robbie didn't go back to the school after that.

 

* * *

 

Three and a half weeks after she left, a letter _finally_ appeared on the doorstep. Robbie practically flung himself across the room to get it, tripping over a paper plate of leftover pizza in the process.

The paper was lined, and ragged, as if torn from a notebook, but it was the gold wax seal that held Robbie's attention. As his thumb grazed it, the paper seemed to _sigh,_ almost, and the seal broke without almost any effort on his part. Hands shaking more than he would've liked, Robbie swept his eyes over the writing, which looked alarmingly hasty.

 

> _Sweetheart,_
> 
> _I can't come home yet, I'm so sorry I couldn't reply sooner. I think I'm close. I can't give up on him._
> 
> _Please, don't give up on me._
> 
> _I love you_
> 
> _\- Mama_

It was her handwriting. She wasn't dead. She wasn't _dead._

Robbie expelled a hoarse breath and curled around the letter. Read it again. And again. Wondered at what her state of mind was when she wrote it; her handwriting didn't seem any different than normal, just slanted a bit, like she was writing fast. So was that... fear? Excitement? Agitation? How was he supposed to _know_?

His back ached. The recliner wasn't as comfortable without Mom.

Climbing up off the floor, Robbie grabbed another piece of paper and scratched out a new letter.

 

> _Mom,_
> 
> _I hope you're ok, I hope you find Glanni, I don't want to be alone, the house is too empty and I stopped going to school, my back hurts_
> 
> _Come home safe Mom please_
> 
> _\- Robbie_
> 
>  

* * *

 

Maybe he was putting just a _little_ too much faith in the house's wards, but ever since his Mom left home, Robbie had started staying up later. He hadn't had dreams of the forest since his first year in Lazytown; the Court should've long forgotten him, right?

He ended up staying away overnight, a couple times. His magic didn't feel any different.

What _did_ feel different was the space between his shoulders. Almost a month after his birthday, what had started as a dull ache - which he attributed to sleeping crumpled up in the recliner - had transformed into a raw, burning pain that didn't let him _sleep_ or _think_ or do _anything._ Robbie tried stretching; that just made him tired. He tried the heating pack; that worked, but only for a few days, before the pain got worse.

It felt like his muscles were turning to sandpaper under his skin, chafing and scraping and _twisting._

He went around the house shirtless most of the time, constantly scratching to the point of digging his nails into his too-pale skin, or picking up his favorite pillow and _screaming_ into it. On the kitchen counter were half a dozen unsent letters, all of them a variation of the same desperate plea to his mom to _come home, my back hurt so much and I'm scared and I want you to **come home.**_

Robbie knew he couldn't ask her that, Glanni needed her more, Robbie wasn't the one maybe _dying,_ no matter how much it felt like he was.

Cold, almost freezing showers were the only thing that seemed to soothe the pain. Every other hour, Robbie found himself crawling into the tub, huddling under the highest intensity setting, shivering and rocking himself back and forth. After three straight days of this routine, it was _astounding_ that he hadn't come down with a fever yet, but he almost wished he would; that way, he'd at least be exhausted enough to _maybe_ sleep through the pain.

Gods, it just wouldn't _stop._

At a sudden sharp burst of what felt like needles erupting out his spine, Robbie lurched forward and tumbled over the side of the bathtub, almost pulling down the shower curtain on accident. He tried to hold back a shriek, and succeeded for the most part, as it came out as a strangled whine instead. Scrambling to his feet, Robbie braced both hands on the bathroom sink, staring at his gangly arms and unevenly cut bangs and blotchy eyes in the mirror.

_Stop stop stop stop-_

It didn't. Something was - _something_ , he didn't know what, this wasn't like anything he'd ever _felt-_

He could see purple in his peripheral vision, screeching a warning too little, too late.

_MOM HELP ME-_

Robbie felt the skin on his back _tear,_ and he screamed.

 

* * *

 

Robbie came to with a rasping wheeze. The first thing he noticed was that his left side was cold, and damp, and it took him a second to figure out that this was due to him being sprawled out on the floor of the bathroom. He could still hear the shower running, but the room felt so much colder than before.

...he'd blacked out. _That_ much he knew. What he didn't know was for how long, or _why -_ the last thing he remembered was begging for Mom to help him, begging for the pain to just _stop,_ he wasn't asking for much he just wanted the pain-

-to-

- _stop._

Robbie froze on the bathroom floor. His hand floated up around his chest, towards his back.

His back that _didn't hurt._

Slowly, he staggered to his feet. Despite the cold shower, the bathroom had still managed to fog up a bit, mostly on the mirror, which was just blurry enough to confuse him for a second before he reached out a shaking hand and smeared the condensation away.

_His back didn't hurt._

He blinked once. Twice. Rubbed his eyes.

Something glittered purple, and green, and Robbie knew suddenly why his back had been hurting, and why it didn't hurt anymore.

 

* * *

 

Robbie wanted to tell his Mom, but _how the hell_ was he supposed to convey what had happened in a _letter??_

He tried to write it out. There wasn't a single way he could phrase it, he thought, that wouldn't most likely cause her to panic, and try and come home, and probably risk hers and Glanni's lives. He just wanted to _talk_ to her, and the letters were just too stiff, too static, they didn't have any emotion and couldn't convey to her how much he just wanted to curl up in her lap and cry.

He'd just surprise her if they got home.

... _when_ they got home.

 

* * *

 

 _No no no no_ he couldn't just _keep it a secret,_ at first Robbie was just happy that it didn't hurt anymore, but they were _free now_ and he wanted someone to _know._

He wanted to tell someone. _Had_ to tell someone. This wasn't like his magic that he could disguise and ignore, this was a part of him and he couldn't just keep it _locked up._ He barely knew what to do with them, he just knew that they were restless and wanted the sky and wanted to be _admired._

He had to tell someone, and he ended up staying awake for far too long at night trying to figure out who that should be.

 

* * *

  
After a couple days of time-consuming thought, Robbie picked his confidante.

He knew he couldn't go to an adult; he didn't know or trust many of them, aside from a few old teachers, and maybe the Mayor, but adults had a habit of talking to other adults, and he couldn't take that risk. And he didn't know even _half_ the kids in Lazytown, and most of the ones he _did_ know tended to think of him as _that kid who's creepily good at math but won't share homework,_ or _that kid who never invites anyone to his house,_ or _that kid who fell off the monkey bars and is scared of heights now._

Really, that all left him with only one option, and he pulled a hoodie over his painful shoulders and went to track her down.

The best part about her was that she was like him, looking _too much_ human, teeth just too perfect and not quite smiling right all of the time. She was a bit older than he was, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and not as much like him as he'd hoped, but she had _something_ inhuman to her, probably from a grandparent. He doubted that she even knew, what with her parents always being away and leaving her in the care of a nanny... Robbie suspected she was descended from a river fae, considering how she cooed and preened and had all the younger boys come running to carry her books to school.

She was nice. Ish. Snobby, more than a little bit full of herself, but she painted Robbie's nails sometimes and he knew that even though she liked sharing the gossip that went around amongst the teachers, she kept secrets for the kids well enough.

He cornered her as she was walking past the playground, shoulder blades hurting _so damn much_ he was forced to hunch over even further than usual.

"Hey there, Robbie!"

"Hi, Bessie."

She had curlers in her hair, all stuck in at odd angles. Robbie hadn't the faintest idea where she'd gotten them, and didn't really care at this point.

"I need to show you something," he grated out, glancing around to make sure they were out of sight under the slide.

Bessie quirked an eyebrow at him curiously. "...what is it?"

"You can't tell _anyone_ ," he insisted with a severity that seemed to take the both of them by surprise.

"Okay, okay, I promise not to tell anyone!" Bessie almost looked worried. More of a curious worried, and not so much a _concerned-for-his-health_ worried, but it helped to know that someone aside from his mom and Glanni thought he was worth listening to. "...what is it?"

His confidence, which was earlier in shambles, started to reform. Robbie wasn't sure if it would take or not, but he'd put all of his concentration into making that conversation a _deal,_ and he hoped against hope that it worked.

He started pulling off his hoodie. Bessie's foot tapped the pavement, almost impatiently. Slowly, achingly, Robbie pulled the hoodie over his head, but not all the way off his arms, just in case someone else happened by and he needed to hide again. The next few moments, all he could feel was a sensation akin to peeling a bad sunburn, and he felt the pins and needles all around his shoulders subside.

"You can't tell anyone," he reiterated forcefully.

Bessie _gaped_.

Robbie stayed hunched, letting them breathe for the first time in the fresh air.

They draped out on either side of his shoulders, not more than an elbow's length from his body. Their tassels - was that the right word? it _felt_ right - hung down to his mid-thigh, swaying lightly in the breeze. Their curve was more subtle than his mother's, or even Glanni's, who both had sharper edges. Robbie's were smooth, and a little fuzzy, more akin to a moth than a butterfly.

Mostly purple, with dull green at the edges, and a dark gold eye spot on either one.

They were still limp, and still small, and still _useless,_ but-

-he had _wings._

"Are you..." Bessie stumbled over her words, for the first time in Robbie's memory. "Are you a fairy?? Like, an _actual_ fairy?"

His wings twitched anxiously, casting a strange glow over his skin. "Half."

" _Wow_ ," she whispered, slowly walking around him, staring agog at the translucent purple wings. "It's your mom, isn't it?"

"I... what?"

"The fairy half. It's your mom, right?" Bessie snapped her fingers and pointed at him with a gleeful look on her face. " _That's_ why the pie she made for the bake sale last year tasted so good! I've been trying to copy the recipe, and I've gotten close, but I can't get it perfect-"

Bessie went off into a ramble about pies and the consistency of whipping cream, barely affording any real attention to the wings sprouting out behind Robbie's shoulders. More than a few times it looked like she wanted to reach out and touch his wings, but she kept her distance, much to his relief. They ended up sitting down under the slide, mostly hidden from sight, just... talking.

Well, it was mostly Bessie talking, and Robbie trying to massage the muscles around his wings so they didn't itch so much. The searing pain he'd been experiencing since his birthday was long gone, thank the gods, but some soreness lingered. He had no idea if that was normal or not; no one was left in Lazytown who could possibly know anything about fairies.

He'd ask Mom. When she got home.

"-do you think you can fly with them?" Bessie was pestering.

Robbie leaned forward, hands on his ankles and rocking slightly from side to side. "I don't know," he murmured, "I just got them."

Bessie's eyes widened again. "Oh - oh, wait, your mom's away - does she not know yet??"

He shook his head and looked at the ground again.

"How come you didn't call her or something? Ooh, are you waiting to surprise her?"

He fidgeted. "...something like that."

Bessie nodded understandingly, eyes once again fixing on the green and purple. Robbie wished he didn't feel like he was being picked apart as she looked at him, but the feeling of scrutiny was overwhelmed by the comfort he felt as he watched her expression shift back to unapologetic wonder. "They're so cool," she breathed. "I can't imagine being a fairy, what's it like?"

She knew more about it than she realized, but Robbie didn't feel like telling her that, now or ever. Sometimes it was better just to not know. "It's..." He fumbled. "I dunno. It's like being me, I guess."

Bessie pursed her lips. "Fair enough." She fell quiet for a half a second, then spouted, "Where'd you live before coming here? Did you live with other fairies?"

It took all of Robbie's willpower to _not_ vividly imagine the forest, and its dozens of paths and its old, old trees. "...no," he half-lied, "I didn't live with other fairies. It's just me and my mom." No point in bringing up Courts. It would just cause problems. And it was mostly true, he'd never lived _with_ the Court fairies. He'd met them, played with them, but he'd never had the misfortune of living amongst them.

He wondered if Bessie wasn't bringing up his 'uncle Rikki' because she'd simply forgotten about him, or if she'd been _made_ to not care, and then forget. Robbie wasn't going to talk about Glanni if he didn't have to. He'd only made Bessie promise to not talk about his wings, there was no guarantee that she'd keep any more of his secrets.

"Thanks for showing me, Robbie," he heard her saying softly, "they're _so cool."_

His mind flashed to his mom's wings, and to Glanni's wings, and then to an elf without a face, chasing them through some dark alleyway where the only light was trapped in their wings, making it impossible for them to ever get away.

Robbie swallowed harshly.

"Yeah." _The elf won't find you, let them stay out, no one will see, you're safe._ "Pretty cool."

 

* * *

 

Robbie stayed out with Bessie for an hour before she excused herself, and he tugged his hoodie back on and hurried home before dark. His fresh wings protested against being pinned beneath the fabric, and he let them out as soon as he came home, kicking off his shoes and slamming the door behind him.

In his hurry to get inside and free his wings again, he didn't notice the piece of paper wedged in the door, which fell to the floor and ended up underneath his sneaker as he sent it flinging into the corner.

This one bore only a smear of wax, and wasn't folded, and there were a few dark red dots staining the paper around the words.

 

> _Robbie,_
> 
> _I found him._
> 
> _We're coming home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take a wiiiiiiiiild guess who shows up next chapter ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next couple chapters might be a bit on the shorter side because reasons
> 
> Time to get everyone back together ;)

It occurred to Robbie one day, roughly a month and a week after his mom had left, that he'd grown just a little too used to seeing the clocks in the house show midnight. And too used to leaving dishes in the sink. And too used to letting laundry pile up on his bed, which hadn't been slept in for the past three weeks. And-

All in all, the house was a _mess,_ and Robbie was a mess of equal magnitude. His bangs were uneven; the fallout of trying to cut them himself. His eyes had dark circles under them. He'd kept up a regular schedule of showers, up until the last week. He didn't know if water would hurt his wings, and he didn't know how to put them back under his skin like his mom and Glanni could.

So. The house was messy, and Robbie was messy; almost anything and everything that _could_ be messy, was.

_Mom's going to have a fit when she comes back._

His nose twitched sharply. When had it started doing that? He didn't know. Before the wings, at the same time as the wings... a little after, most likely. Their emergence had changed more about him than he'd first realized. His magic sense seemed... deeper? Fuller? He'd always been able to feel his wards, but now he could practically _hear_ them buzzing, a soft white noise that kept him company in place of conversation.

He'd tried to glamour his wings, instead of folding them under his hoodie. It'd... halfway worked. It took some contorting to be able to see them in the mirror, but in the end it was all in vain. The most he'd achieved was a haze around the wings, making them look more like those plastic costume pieces the kids wore on Halloween, but still altogether obvious. And he couldn't go around making deals of secrecy with _everyone,_ so under the hoodie they stayed.

It _hurt._

Not as much as when they'd been, you know, _slowly digging their way backwards out of his flesh,_ but it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. At least his hoodies were soft on the inside.

It would've been nice if the microwave still worked, but Robbie hadn't a _hope_ of fixing that. Clocks and TV remotes, those he could fix. The microwave was about as dead as a machine could be, which made it aggravating to get hot cocoa. He'd had to resort to heating milk on the stove - and _that_ had turned out _wonderful_ the first couple tries - and slowly stirring the chocolate powder in. He couldn't get it quite as hot as the microwave, but it was drinkable, at least, and soothed the ache in his back.

Dropping the saucepan into the sink, Robbie turned the oven off and wrapped his hands around the mug of cocoa, inhaling the steam with snorting breaths.

His nose was clogged as of the last couple of days. Apparently the endless cold showers had caught up to him.

The cocoa helped. And the blanket. _Several_ blankets, all lumped over his shoulders and dragging on the floor behind him as he walked sluggishly towards the stairs.

 _Hey, I'm in a cocoon,_ his thoughts journeyed vaguely. _I'm a true fairy._

A couple birthdays ago, Glanni had put it into his head that true fairies hatched out of cocoons. At the time, Mom hadn't been listening into their conversation much, and just nodded along distractedly when Robbie asked if that was true or not. She'd spent the next week trying to convince Robbie that Glanni was in fact lying and _no, fairies do not **hatch** , and **no** I was never a larva, Glanni, stop giving my boy nightmares or I'll hit you with this spatula._

 _Larva_. As if Robbie would've been dumb enough to fall for _that_.

His feet shuffled on the carpet, shocking slightly.

...yeah. He'd fallen for it. It took two weeks for the image of his mom as a grub to leave his head. And now it was _back_. Robbie buried a groan with a long swallow of relatively-hot cocoa and made his way up the stairs. If he was going to start cleaning anywhere, he might as well start in his room; it was the least dirty, and would probably be the easiest to clear up, and then he could have some satisfaction knowing _one_ part of the house wasn't a horrible mess.

Upon getting upstairs, he set the cocoa down on the bedside table, after stumbling his way over several pairs of pants and at least one high heel that was probably Glanni's and for _some_ reason had wound up in Robbie's room. The floor was relatively clean, more so than the bed, at least, so Robbie ignored it for the moment and crawled up onto the mattress, still wrapped in too many blankets.

Too many warm, soft, blankets-

Robbie yawned. _I'd get more work done after a nap, right?_ It was almost one in the morning, if he napped until two he'd be able to clean the whole room before morning, probably. And then he could sleep again. Or go to the store, he'd run out of frozen pizzas.

He curled up on the bed, chin on a pillow, staring at a pile of t-shirts and balled-up notebook paper. Somewhere in the pile was his favorite screwdriver.

 _I'll find it after a nap..._ his thoughts were turning slow. He yawned again, a much longer one this time.

The blankets were so _warm._

Robbie worked his shirt off underneath the blankets, freeing his wings and letting them splay out on top of him, brushing against the cotton in relief.

Just a little nap.

He closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

The sound of something downstairs creaking woke Robbie from the deepest sleep he'd had in weeks.

Even while his sight was still blurry, he felt something crawling up and down his spine; a warning from his personal wards. Purple and green flashed in his peripheral vision as his wings flared up around him.

Another creak. Someone was _downstairs._

Robbie's heartbeat jumped, and he dove for the nearest sweater and tugged it over his head. Did someone break in?? The wards should've _stopped_ them.

The nearest blunt object in his room was his mug. Reaching out to the bedside table, Robbie snatched it up and made haste for the door, tiptoeing into the hallway. The creaking continued, sounding like a door and maybe footsteps, and occasionally a mumble. Creeping around the corner, Robbie hovered at the top of the stairs for a half a second, weighing his options.

Wait for them to leave?? Wait for the house's wards to kick in and drive them off? He hadn't been good about maintaining them, and if the person came upstairs-

He went down. Slowly. The house was _too dark._

More creaking. And maybe silverware being shoved around. _Someone's in the kitchen._ Robbie's hand tightened around the mug fearfully. He reached the bottom of the stairs to find the living room dark and no one there, at first. Maybe he was lucky, maybe they'd just left, the front door was slightly ajar-

-no, gods, _there it was._

A silhouette, tall and lanky and _grumbling._

Robbie _screeched_ and threw his mug - still half full of now cold cocoa - at the figure rooting around in the kitchen cabinets. It clocked the person in the temple, and they let out a tirade of raspy swears that alternated between English and a language Robbie recognized and only half understood.

"Son of a _fucking-"_

The mug clattered to the ground. Robbie froze in the frame of the door.

Across the way, the front door swung open again, and a woman came rushing in, face lit by the golden wisp floating at her side. The person in the kitchen slumped over the counter, massaging his head with a load groan.

Robbie couldn't _breathe._

"Goddamit, Ana," the man snapped, "control your offspring!"

The woman's head whipped around. "What were you - did you just - you came in and didn't even _announce_ yourself??" There was a light slapping sound as the woman's hand met the man's. "Whatever just happened, I'm sure you deserve it."

Robbie was sprinting across the room and in seconds had flung himself at his mom, grappling her into a hug and bringing them both tumbling down to the floor.

Up at the counter, Glanni groaned again. "Gods, he's gone feral."

"You're _back!!"_ Robbie shrieked, volume barely muffled by the density of his mom's coat. He squeezed around her waist a little harder, just to make sure she wasn't fake, that he wasn't _dreaming._ "You - you found _him,_ you're not _dead,_ you're _back-"_

Ana coughed and started to pry him off of her torso, slowly leaning back up to a sitting position. "Yes, sweetheart, we're - Robbie, please, _I need to breathe."_

He let go, but didn't move from her lap. His gaze snapped up to Glanni. "You're not _dead,"_ he echoed.

"Not for lack of the elf's trying," Glanni muttered sourly. "Or _yours,_ you wretched little goblin." His hand reached up and felt around in his hair. "Was there something _in_ that mug??"

"Just cocoa." _They're not dead, they're back, they're not **dead.**_ Robbie was near to passing out from a combination of no sleep and adrenaline spiking through his system. In that single moment, as he sucked in a breath, Robbie became aware of the pins and needles growing in his shoulders, and the way his hoodie was bunching up on his back. His mouth split into a grin. "Mom, Mom, _you'll never guess what happened."_

Ana's brow furrowed. "...what happened?"

"Oh no, let me guess," Glanni said, voice still hoarse, "you burned down your school and that's the _real_ reason you haven't been going."

"No, _no,"_ Robbie almost _giggled,_ barely able to contain himself. He started tugging his hoodie off his head, hearing his mom say what sounded like a fae-speech rebuke to Glanni. In the dim light of the kitchen, he could just barely see their silhouettes through the hoodie fabric, and neither of them were looking his way.

He pulled the hoodie all the way off, revealing his utter lack of shirt underneath.

Between his shoulders, they unfurled. Stretched. Shivered in the light.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Glanni freeze up, then slowly side down to sit on the floor, still slumping to one side. "Holy shit," he murmured.

Ana's hand clapped over her mouth.

"Holy _shit_ , kid," Glanni croaked again. His head turned slightly towards Ana. "Okay, I forgive you for being an idiot and coming to get me."

Ana reached out with one arm - a _heavily bandaged_ arm, Robbie noticed with a lurch in his stomach - and grazed her fingers over the edge of his wings. He could see the faint glitter of tears at the edges of her eyes.

"Oh, sweetheart," she whispered, voice cracking. "I'm so sorry, oh gods - you said in your letters your back was hurting." Her hand went back to her mouth, rubbing anxiously. "And I wasn't here. I should've - you shouldn't have had to go through that alone, Robbie, I'm so sorry."

He managed a shrug. "It wasn't so bad." _It hurt so much, I thought I was going to die._ She didn't need to know the details. His eyes then narrowed, and his hands snatched at her arm, fingers gingerly dancing over the gauze. "I'm fine, Mom, I promise - are _you_ okay??" He bit his lip. "Did the _elf_ do this?"

"Kiddo," Glanni laughed, "I don't think the entire elvish heroic order could put a scratch on your mom."

Shooting Glanni a very maternal look, Ana covered one of Robbie's hands in her other and said gently, "That's a _bit_ of an exaggeration, but no, it wasn't the elf."

"So what happened?" It was her _entire arm._ All the way from wrist to elbow, and Robbie spotted a few dark-tinted veins peeking out into her palm.

Glanni looked away. "That's... my fault."

"It is _not,"_ Ana retorted. "You were _dying."_

"No, I _wasn't_ , but you could've killed yourself fixing me, and where would that have left Robbie?" Glanni spat. His tone lacked its usual venom, and sounded tired more than anything, which didn't sound right at _all_ to Robbie. Upon looking more closely at the man, he realized the slump was due to him favoring his left side, where his arm was pressing down on his bandaged torso. His eyes shared Robbie's dark circles, and the corner of his mouth and one eye were bruised to the point of swelling.

When Glanni noticed Robbie staring, he managed a feeble grin. "Not as bad as it looks, Robbie," he said.

"You look like you got stuck in a trash compactor," Robbie whispered in a mix of awe and alarm.

Glanni snorted. "Well, your mom found me in a dumpster. Close enough."

Robbie's expression turned from awe to horror. Glanni noticed, and almost looked a bit guilty. "I'm okay, kid," he rasped. When Robbie gave him an utterly disbelieving glower, he shrugged and amended, "Okay, I'm not _peachy,_ but like you said, I'm not dead."

The sound of slowly returning sarcasm soothed Robbie a bit, and he sagged into his mom's arms again. Her fingers immediately returned to stroking the tips of his wings, and her touch nearly made him melt. "Sorry about the mess," he mumbled, "I was gonna clean up..."

"Don't you worry about that, sweetheart," Ana said gently. "We can get it all tidied up tomorrow. Maybe after I get the car to the garage."

Robbie's head perked up, and his brow furrowed quizzically. "...what happened to the car??"

"Elf," Glanni muttered. "He punched the rear axle _,_ because _apparently,_ your mom ran him over."

Robbie's eyes bulged out of his skull, and his head snapped back towards his mom. The awed half-grin returned. "You ran _over_ him?"

The corner of Ana's mouth tried to smile. "Well, I - yes. I did." She brushed a hand through Robbie's hair. "That was the closest I got to him, he was blocking our way out... but he didn't catch up to us after that." The almost-smile started to take over a bit more of her face, and she softly kissed Robbie's forehead. "We came back as quickly as we could, Robbie."

He nodded. "I get it, Mom." He hugged her again, but let go quickly, and crawled across the floor to Glanni. Practically forcing his way into the man's lap, he wrapped his arm's around his bandaged chest and squeezed as gently as he could. Glanni let out a brief cough, but laid an arm over Robbie's shoulders, careful not to press on his new wings. Robbie felt Glanni's chin come to rest on the top of his head. "Sorry we didn't listen to your letter, Glanni."

The man snorted again. "Eh. I figured your mom wouldn't listen. She's dumb like that."

"Says the man who proposed stealing the elf's hot air balloon as our means of escape," Ana scoffed.

"It would've worked!"

"You don't even know how to fly that thing!" _  
_

"Yes, I do! I've been in it before!"

"You shouldn't have been in there to  _begin_ with-"

Robbie leaned into Glanni's chest, listening to them bickering, and his eyes fluttered. His ear, pressed to the bandages, could just barely pick up on Glanni's heartbeat.

_Not dead._

They were home. They were safe. He could stop worrying.

Lulled by the sound of their voices, Robbie let himself fall asleep again in Glanni's lap.

 

* * *

 

Robbie woke up around noon the next day, in the recliner. For a second, he panicked, thinking maybe he'd dreamed it all, but-

Mom was in the kitchen. Glanni was nowhere to be seen, but after he walked over and hugged her good morning, she explained that Glanni was upstairs in her room, sleeping with the help of some medicine that she'd been sorely lacking over the past several weeks.

Throughout breakfast, she explained that most of the time she was gone was just spent finding him, and she spared most of the details. Robbie pestered her for more stories only a few times before she gave him the _look,_ and he resigned to imagining their grand escapes from the elf in the hot air balloon.

After spending a few hours cleaning and talking about the past few months - Mom describing what cities were to Robbie, Robbie confessing that he'd told someone about his wings, Mom assuring him that the elf had never seen her face to face, Robbie quietly mentioning that his wings still hurt just a bit - they went together to take the beaten and barely functional car to Lazytown's auto garage to repairs.

Almost the whole walk back from the garage, Robbie kept himself busy telling Ana just about every detail of what had happened in the month she'd been gone. More than a few times, she caught herself worrying that he wasn't breathing enough between his many run-on sentences, but he seemed to have just enough concentration to remind himself of the need for oxygen.

"-and I even tried making a cake. I kinda screwed it up, though."

Ana suppressed a wince at her son's language. After leaving him alone for so long, it was only fair that he have a few days to vent about the past month without her policing his words. "Is _that_ why the microwave is broken?"

Robbie shrugged, swinging their arms in unison as they walked. "I was going to try and fix it. Before you came home. But then all-" he gestured at his back "- _this_ happened. Sorry."

"No need to apologize, sweetheart, it happens. Really, I'm just surprised it took you _this_ long to break it, with all that fiddling you do."

"Cake didn't taste bad, at least," Robbie said. "But _you_ make them better. Can you make it next year?"

A part of Ana, a part she'd long since tried to bury, wanted to insist that _fairies don't celebrate birthdays, they forget the day they're born almost as quickly as they make themselves forget their name._

But her son, her half-human son, who had nothing to with Courts and had no fae name and had been _left alone-_

She squeezed his hand a bit tighter. "Of course I can, Robbie."

He squeezed back. They were passing by the playground now. "So, um. You're really not mad about me telling Bessie?"

Ana sighed; she'd hoped to avoid this conversation, as she didn't really know _what_ to think of Robbie and his 'deal' with the Busybody girl. "I know she's part siren, so at least she might understand that she _made_ a deal with you, even if she doesn't realize it... I don't know, Robbie, I hope she'll keep your secret, but if she doesn't..." She trailed off, not wanting to elaborate at this point. Better to have some faith in the girl, until she proved herself unworthy of it.

"She's nice. Kinda. She's the one who used to paint my nails, remember?"

"I remember." They crossed the road, coming alongside the stone fence around the park. She could hear a group of kids just on the other side, all babbling together with high-pitched voices. While her focus was on Robbie, she couldn't help but eavesdrop on what the other children were doing, it'd been a month since she'd even _seen_ other children and that felt like such a long time. "You liked the dark blue the best, if I recall..."

"Do another jump!!" the other kids were yelling.

"Yeah," Robbie said, "blue and purple stripes. Wait, you knew she was part siren?"

"Oh, I've already done so many!" That was a new voice. Cheery. Thick accent. "You should try instead!"

It was getting dark; it'd be quicker just to cut through the park, instead of going around. Ana stepped towards the fence gate, swinging it open gently, and Robbie started rambling about hair products. "Bessie likes curlers, but sometimes she uses hair gel. It makes her hair all shiny and she can keep it in shapes - you think I could try hair gel, mom?"

"Do a handstand!" another child demanded gleefully.

"Maybe, Robbie," Ana replied. Were there new flowers in the park? Her eyes were suddenly itching.

The other children were in her peripheral vision now, all circled around an upside-down someone. Ana noticed one of the young girls perk her head up, and wave. "Hi, Miss Ana! Hi, Robbie!"

Ana waved back, and fished through her memory for the little girl's name. It came slower than it should've, her eyes were irritating her so badly... was it the flowers?? Could fairies even _be_ allergic to flowers? "Hello, Daisy."

"Robbie, you should come play with us!" the girl squealed. "There's a _superhero_  here, he's so cool!"

Ana's walking slowed. ... _superhero?_

Robbie leaned around her legs, raising an eyebrow at their group. The upwards-pointing legs in the middle of the children dropped down, and a man sprang into view, eager smile plastered over his face. A strange hat sat on his head, with a little bell on the end. The rest of his body was decorated in rich golden hues, and the number nine was emblazoned on the front of his chest.

He walked forward, and the kids parted around him.

Ana felt the blood in her veins freeze.

"A pleasure to meet you, miss," the man said, dipping forward into a shallow bow and standing back up with a flourish that made the kids giggle. His mustache twitched as he gave her a warm smile. "And your son! Robbie, is it?"

Robbie gave the man a quizzical look, and Ana's hand suddenly tightened around his with so much force she was shocked he didn't cry out right then and there.

She'd forgotten what their presence felt like-

"You're a superhero?" Robbie asked doubtfully.

_No no no no NO._

"I suppose you might say that," the man answered. "My name's Íþróttaálfurinn, but who can pronounce _that?"_

Only now did Robbie's grip tighten just as much as his mother's. Seemingly oblivious, the man chuckled, and the sound was like razors upon Ana's ears.

"You can just call me Number Nine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so, SO much for these comments, both on AO3 and on my tumblr... it means the world to me, I can't stress that enough <3
> 
> Also while I'm sorry for a lot of what's about to happen in this story, I shall not apologize for that cliffhanger on chapter five. It's too much fun reading screaming all-caps comments xD


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. I'm back from skiing and possibly sick from rain and rather bruised on the thigh.
> 
> Time to do a Bad Thing.

It took every single shred of Ana's willpower to remain composed while the elf stared her down. All the while, she felt Robbie's nails digging into her wrist, begging for some consolation from her, and all she could do was squeeze back and pray the elf didn't notice their uneasiness. If he did... if he didn't already know, he could very well _guess,_ and Ana couldn't count on him not attacking in front of the human children.

Daisy came up around the elf's side, bouncing on her toes. Her eyes were on Robbie as she squealed, "He just came today in a hot air balloon and he was gonna play soccer with us, you should join!"

Robbie stepped behind Ana's leg. The little girl pouted when he didn't answer, and the elf patted her shoulder in a way that Ana could've sworn was sympathetic.

"Don't pester him, Daisy," the elf insisted. "It's getting late anyway, we can play soccer tomorrow."

The girl's pout intensified. Ana wanted to take advantage of the elf's distraction and _run_ , but she forced herself to stay still.

Did the elf know? He'd never seen her face, and Glanni had never said her name, or Robbie's.

"Are you..." She cleared her throat. "Is this your first time in Lazytown?"

The elf nodded. "I come and go from town to town."

Now, Ana was a good fairy. As such, she didn't believe in luck. She made her own, and elves did the same.

They _couldn't_ be so lucky that this was just a pit stop for the elf. It couldn't just be a random fluke of chance, that he would stop here so soon after losing Glanni's trail. Elves never just _happened_ to come near Courts, never just  _happened_ to be in the right at place at the absolute  _worst_ time, never just _happened_ to wander into the same town that sheltered their worst enemies.

It _didn't happen._

So. He had to know. There was no way he _didn't_. He'd tracked them, somehow, but - but maybe, _just maybe,_ he didn't realize who he was talking to just yet. Glanni said it'd taken a while for the elf to see through his glamour when they first met, so perhaps Ana's wards and glamours were holding strong. She'd burnt so much of her energy keeping Glanni alive, she wasn't sure if her reserves had had time to replenish, but-

There was still a chance that he didn't know it was _her._

But _Robbie._

His wards weren't powerful enough to keep an elf at bay, and he had no glamours. All he had was a _hoodie_ preventing the elf from seeing his wings.

It was getting dark, perhaps if she just excused herself and her son, the elf would let them go. He had the human children, would he care if they left? Just how quickly did this particular elf take on new charges? Glanni was never clear about it.

Ana managed the politest smile she could. "It's," _the words tasted like bile,_ "good to meet you, Nine. I'm terribly sorry," _she wasn't at all,_ "but we ought to be going-"

Daisy's pout returned. The elf's brow seemed to furrow for a half a second.

Robbie sniffled. _Sneezed._

The elf's eyes widened, and Ana's heels lifted off the ground slightly, ready to run in case that sneeze meant Robbie was reacting to the elf's magic, ready to run in case the elf knew what that _meant-_

"Oh, dear," the elf said, pursing his lips. "Coming down with a cold?"

Robbie rubbed his sleeve over his nose and shrugged. Ana forgot how to breathe, for a moment. The elf's gaze seemed so sincere, he almost fooled _her,_ and she knew what he could do, the damage he could inflict on a fairy. The _scars_ he left in Glanni. The _chasing._ He'd have no sympathy if he knew what Robbie was, but still she heard him say, "Don't let us keep you, then!" He made a shooing motion with his hand in the direction they'd been walking. "And remember to drink a lot of fluids if you _do_ get sick. I'm sure your mom can fix you up something nice."

Robbie nodded, rubbing his nose again. Ana wondered if he'd faked the sneeze on purpose, or if it had been caused by the elf's magic, which was well hidden, but still _seeping_ from his being. Either way, it didn't matter right now. The elf was letting them leave.

Daisy waved. "Bye, Robbie!"

One of the other kids - one of the few older boys hanging around, wearing a white sequinned jacket and dark sunglasses - gave a meek smile and said, "Hope you feel better, Robbie."

The children came to cluster around the elf as Ana gave them all a quick nod, and started walking out of the park. All her instinct screamed _don't turn your back on him, he's still watching and he **knows,**_ but she bit down on the inside of her cheek enough to draw blood, and that sated her magic for now. She could let it erupt once they were home, and fuel its panic into the house wards. Into Glanni, into Robbie. Into _anything._

Just not now. Not while _he_ was watching.

As they walked, she felt Robbie start trembling.

"Bye, kids!" she heard the elf's voice ring from over a wall, between bushes. In her peripheral vision, she saw the children go one way, and the elf start back flipping another. In the _opposite_ direction of the house, in fact.

As soon as the elf was out of sight, Ana picked Robbie up, hiked him onto her shoulders, and broke into a run.

 

* * *

 

Robbie's ears were ringing like several fireworks had gone off inside of them by the time he and his mom came bursting in through the front door, startling a very sluggish Glanni into dropping a plate full of crackers and cheese spread. He heard the man grumble something, and it turned into a wheeze halfway through, and sounded like it was painful, but all he could think about was the _ringing._

He was distantly aware of his mom carrying him over to the recliner, setting him down in the seat and framing her hands around his face.

"Robbie? Robbie, open your eyes, sweetheart."

Weren't they already? He tried to look her way, hands restlessly squirming in his lap, itching for _something_ to take apart and build back together, and put his magic into. At first he thought for _sure_ he was looking at her face, but as she kept urging him to _open his eyes,_ he realized the image he saw was static, mismatching colors, like a blurred photograph, or a memory.

He tried again. Focused on his eyelids, how heavy they felt, tried to ignore that damn ringing.

It took half a minute of quick breathing, and hands fidgeting, and eyelids fluttering before Robbie _finally_ opened them. The first thing he saw was Mom breathing in a sharp gasp; hovering behind her, using a floor lamp as a crutch, Glanni, looking equally worried, and far more baffled.

"The _hell_ happened??"

Mom's mouth was pressed into a thin line, her face pale and hands still shaking on Robbie's cheeks. She ignored Glanni for a moment and asked, "Robbie, tell me _exactly_ what's hurting."

He swallowed, throat raw. With a limp hand, he gestured to his head. "... _ears_."

Her hands shifted back, index fingers resting on each of his earlobes, pressing them gently against his neck. "Hold still." Her fingertips grew warm to the touch, almost as hot as the top of the stove, or the shower water when Robbie turned it all the way up. He had to bite his tongue in order to keep from squirming, hands balling into fists on top of his knees.

It _burned._ Robbie counted his heartbeats. Thirty-eight in total, before the burning sensation lessened, as did the ringing.

Mom's hands dropped away from his head, going for his hands instead and rubbing her thumbs over Robbie's knuckles. He shook his head experimentally, and while there was still a dull buzzing present, the screeching sound was gone.

Glanni was still hovering, expression having gone from confused to bewildered.

"Ana," he rasped, "do _not_ tell me that was what I think it was."

Robbie saw her bite her lip, and she didn't say anything. Glanni's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and he slumped heavily against the lamp, almost enough to tip it over. "Tell me that wasn't a backlash, Ana, _tell me it wasn't."_ His tone rose to a higher pitch than Robbie was used to hearing, almost frantic. "Dammit, Ana, talk to me!"

"What do you want me to say, Glanni??" Mom snapped, rounding on the man. "I don't lie as well as you do!"

Glanni _flinched._ Robbie felt a wave of nausea creep over him, and the sight of crackling orange around his Mom's fingers made him suddenly dizzy. Underneath his hoodie, his wings stirred, and almost reflexively Robbie found himself yanking the hoodie over his head to free them. They could feel the rising magic in the air, they wanted to be _away_ from here, as far as they could possibly get.

The older half-fae flicked his tongue over his busted lower lip, locking eyes with Mom and sagging fully against the wall, one arm pressed over the bandages on his chest.

"...he's here, isn't he?" Glanni muttered.

The orange around Mom's hands vanished, and she rubbed both hands down her face. The back of her blouse was shimmering, parting to let her wings - black and deep orange and bigger than she was - emerge into the dim lamplight. Robbie's skin crawled at the sight of them; she hadn't let them out in almost a year, and it showed. Their points were dull, and crumpled, but their power was still vivid.

A fairy showing wings was a fairy who no longer cared about keeping their magic _contained._

Robbie swallowed again. The lump in his throat was getting bigger.

In the threshold of the kitchen and living room, Glanni's eyes widened for a second, then half-closed, and he let out a sigh that turned to a cough halfway through.

"...shit," was all he could say. His eyes darted from Mom's wings, down to Robbie's, and then back to Mom's. "Did he recognize you?"

Mom shook her head. "I don't think so... I don't think he would've been as courteous if he had."

"Where was he?"

"In the park. With children." Robbie couldn't see her face, but he clearly heard the strain in her voice. "He isn't taking them as charges, is he?"

Glanni shrugged lopsidedly. "Probably not, he hasn't been here long enough and I doubt he plans to stay." His stare bored through Mom's skull and made it all the way to Robbie, now sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees on the chair. "Elves don't come near Courts without good reason. He knows we're here." His fingers curled into the wall, scraping to the point of producing a shrill sound that made Robbie cringe. Neither of the adults seemed to hear it. "Ana, we can't..." His eyes went back to Robbie. "He'll _know."_

Robbie recoiled from the look Glanni was giving him. "Know what??"

Mom half turned, looking between Glanni and Robbie, brow furrowed. Glanni cleared his throat and tipped his head towards a space behind her shoulder, then looked back at Robbie, eyes bugging out insistently. At her confusion, Glanni carded a frustrated hand through his hair and uttered a sentence in Fae-speech that sounded unusually somber, even for him.

At this, Mom stiffened. She hissed back in Fae, and Glanni nearly growled in return. Both their gazes kept darting back to Robbie.

It took only a minute for his restraint to snap. Throwing out his arms, he said in a strangled voice, "Stop _doing_ that!!"

They both froze up, mouths clamping shut as they returned their gaze to him. Not waiting for either of them to interrupt, Robbie continued breathlessly, "You always _do_ that, you're always talking in that _stupid_ language when I'm listening, just tell me, okay?!" He pointed towards the tiny kitchen window, westward to the park, and the slowly setting sun. "You always told me not to go near an elf and now one's _here_ and he _saw_ me and you're _still_ not telling me everything!! So stop it! What are you talking about?? What is he going to _know_ _?"_

There was a moment of tense silence before Glanni muttered, "Oh, fuck it." His hand peeled away from his chest and gestured towards Robbie. "You're still a kid. We might be able to lie low, wait for him to give up and look somewhere else, but you can't. Your wings are too new, you wouldn't be able to hide them. Not from him." A wry smirk crossed his face. "Hoodies and little machines aren't enough this time."

"That doesn't mean-!" Mom cut in sharply, fingers flexing in and out of restless fists. "There _has_ to be another way-!"

"Like what??" Glanni's voice turned hoarse, and Robbie could see his knees shaking slightly. "Your car's useless. Robbie's magic sticks out like a blizzard in the summer, never mind these wards which I _still_ haven't been able to fix all the way! Robbie can't hide his wings, I could barely walk down the damn stairs, you're _exhausted,_ we wouldn't make it twenty feet if we tried to leave, not with _him_ floating up in the fucking sky!" Glanni's whole body was trembling, one foot threatening to slide out from underneath him. "There's only so many houses here, Ana, he'll find us. If not today, tomorrow. _Maybe_ the next day if we're lucky, and I for one have never been lucky in my _life."_

There were tears running down Mom's cheeks, Robbie realized with alarm. Glanni was near to breathless, and kept going anyway. " _When_ he finds us, if we're not ready for him, the _least_ we can do is make sure Robbie is as far away from his radar as we can get him."

Now it was Robbie's turn to flinch. "What does _that_ mean?"

Mom sucked in a ragged breath, smearing a palm over her face, and the tears. "...your wings, sweetheart. Your magic... it's tied to them. What you had before they emerged, it - it's so small, even the elf wouldn't notice it, he'd - he'd think-" Her voice cut off in another hiccuping gasp.

Robbie's eyes widened.

"He'd think the human half's the one you got," Glanni finished.

 _No, no, that's not how it works! That's not how she_ ** _said_** _it works!_ "But - Mom, you told me even if I was _less_ than half, I'd have magic, and wings-!"

"Yes, Robbie," she breathed, "but _he_ doesn't know that."

Robbie covered his eyes with his hands, felt his shoulder shake, felt his wings flutter weakly. When he parted his fingers to look back at Mom, his eyes were watering to match hers. "You want to-" he could barely get the words out, he _hated_ them, "-you want to take my wings away??"

Almost instantly, Mom and Glanni balked, Glanni _somehow_ losing even more of the color in his already deathly pale face, and Mom gasping so sharply she nearly reached the same pitch as fingernails on a cracked wall. She hurried down to kneel before him, prying his hands off his face and holding them tight, running her thumbs over the magic points in his wrists. "Gods no, Robbie, we'd never _take_ them!"

"Then what??" he hiccuped.

"We'd just," Glanni stumbled over his words, " _hide_ them. The way they were before."

Before.

_It hurt so much._

Inside his back, between his shoulders, under his skin.

Robbie gulped. "Would I... get them back?"

Glanni tried to smile, but didn't seem to be able to convince himself it was worth the effort. "We could coerce them back out, after it was safe again."

Well. Wasn't _that_ optimistic. More optimistic than Robbie had expected from Glanni, to be honest.

Mom's hands squeezed. "We would... we'd have to make you forget about them, too. Elves have a way of looking through glamours. Glanni and I can shield ourselves, but... you'd have to _know_ that you don't have wings."

Robbie shivered. "In case he went looking in my head?"

It looked like every bone in her body was fighting her, but Mom nodded. She glanced over her shoulder back at Glanni for a heartbeat, then looked at the floor as she whispered, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart... Glanni, he's right, we don't have time to prepare anything else, this is the best way to keep you safe."

Over in the corner, Glanni snorted. "You could always ditch the dead weight and leave town without me. I can be a _very_ good distraction when I feel like."

Robbie and Mom bristled, and in unison they sharply said, " _No."_

Glanni held up a hand in defeat. It was shaking as much as his legs. "Yeah, yeah, I knew you wouldn't go for it, figured I'd bring it up anyway."

A laugh tried to bubble in Robbie's throat. He quashed it as quickly as he could.

"...how long does it take?" he asked nervously.

Mom looked to Glanni expectantly. He shrugged again. "An hour? Maybe less, if your mom helps me out. We could get it done a lot quicker if she'd ever learned the fine art of form binding and could do it herself, but she was too good for that, apparently."

"I still don't know why _you_ learned it," she muttered, "it's barbaric."

"What, you think half-fae can just suck their wings back into themselves whenever they want? No, we have to _learn_ it," Glanni retorted. He took a slow step forward, then doubled over, knuckles whitening around the lamppost. "...Ana." His voice came out a hiss. "Help."

She let go of Robbie's hands and hurried over to Glanni, ducking underneath his arm and letting him lean on her instead. Mostly by her carrying him, and him hopping along on one leg, they returned to the middle of the living room, sitting down on the floor in front of Robbie. He knelt down a foot away from Glanni, anxiously running his fingers over his left wing.

They were so soft. And he felt _whole._

He didn't want to let them go, but-

_The elf will know._

Robbie didn't have any saliva left in his mouth, and settled for prodding his molars with his tongue to distract himself.

Glanni gave him an odd look that read as _tired_ to Robbie, but he guessed was meant to be taken as something else. "Sorry, kid," Glanni murmured, motioning with one hand for Robbie to come closer. "Hopefully that elf will piss off soon and we can put you back to normal before you get too used to forgetting."

"Robbie, come here," Mom said, patting her crossed legs. He shuffled over and slowly settled into her lap. Her wings stayed loose, splayed out to either side, casting a pale orange glow over Glanni's dour face.

"Ana, no, turn him around-" Glanni tugged Robbie's arm, gently twisting his torso around until he shifted so his back was facing Glanni. "Okay. Robbie, whatever you do, don't try to fly."

"I - don't think I can?"

Glanni humphed nasally. "Yeah, I know, but I don't want your wings hitting me in the face. Tiny as they are."

Robbie's fingers curled into his Mom's shirt. "...okay."

He felt cold hands on his upper back, right below his wings. "Keep him still, Ana."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed the top of his head.

"Ready, kiddo?"

_Absolutely not, absolutely not, absolutely **not-**_

Robbie closed his eyes.

"Ready."

 

* * *

 

Mom was rocking Robbie in her lap, humming something she hadn't sung since he was a little kid. Glanni was off to his right, nearly passed out against the recliner, half eaten plate of crackers on the floor next to him.

Robbie reached out and grabbed a cracker covered in peanut butter. His gaze lingered on Glanni.

"...he's gonna be okay, right, Mom?" he asked as he leaned back into her lap.

Her jaw visibly clenched. "...he will be."

"What did the elf _do_ to him?" He shoved the cracker in his mouth. It tasted a little stale, but it'd been sitting out on the plate for the last hour, since he and Mom had gotten home from the park and told Glanni the elf was there. After a slew of cursing in primarily English, peppered with Fae-speech, the man had gathered his plate of crackers back off the floor where it'd fallen and slouched his way over to the recliner.

Mom and Robbie had joined him, and hadn't really moved since. Mom let out her wings at some point, and let Robbie run his fingers up and down their edges in envy.

When she didn't answer his question, he pestered again, "Mom, what did he _do?"_

She sighed heavily, rubbing her hand in small circles over his back. "He had all his injuries by the time I found him." She traced a finger down Robbie's side. "The one here, he said that was from a barbed wire window the elf tossed him through."

"What about his leg?"

Mom winced. "Elves have sharp claws."

Robbie's jaw dropped. "Elves have _claws??"_

She nodded. Robbie's stomach twisted to imagine it. "And his chest...?"

"Chemical burns. They were fighting in a warehouse... they knocked into some canisters. He said the elf's arm was hit rather badly, too."

Robbie pursed his lips. "Good."

She dragged a hand through his hair, and quiet fell over the living room. Robbie suffered it for a minute before speaking again. "Did you two fix the wards?"

"As best we could."

Robbie buried his face into her chest, squirming to get comfortable. It wasn't even an hour after sunset and he was so _tired._ Given the current situation, though, he doubted he'd get much sleep tonight.

"Do you think Glanni knows he snores?"

Mom made a face. "I don't know. But sometimes I think he does it intentionally."

Robbie grinned.

The house was quiet for another moment, cut only by a handful of sounds.

Glanni's soft snore. The ticking of the living room clock.

The muffled sound of Mom's heartbeat, like a ringing bell-

-sharp, keening-

- _ringing in his ears._

Robbie sat bolt upright in his Mom's lap, just as her eyes widened, and Glanni abruptly stopped snoring.

Something slammed against the front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....poor Glanni, he just wanted a snack and now this.
> 
> why do i always update at midnight. 
> 
> also, why is it i keep saying these newer chapters will be short, and then they are not. 
> 
> just. why.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ............I'M SORRY OK

For a moment, none of the three of them dared move. The house stood firm around them, simmering as its wards awoke to counter the presence on their doorstep. The atmosphere took on the scent of sugar, settling like a blanket around Robbie and dulling the ringing in his ears until it was tolerable. It didn't leave completely, it still had to _warn_ him, but at least he could focus now without wanting to rip his ears off.

Another slam. Several, in rapid succession.

Knocking. Not beating the door in, _yet_. Just knocking.

"Glanni!" a thickly accented voice called, muffled by a combination of wood and the wards.

Glanni was fully awake now, glaring narrow-eyed at the door. Robbie hadn't moved an inch since his ears started ringing again, but he could feel Mom shifting slowly, maneuvering him out of her lap and into the floor. Her fingers started to glow faintly, and she seemed to lose several inches of her height, almost an entire foot. Her pupils and irises merged together, and her wings looked like stained glass, and her hair turned _gold again-_

None of them spoke. The _elf_ outside did all the talking for them, and they just stared in silence at the door.

"Glanni-" _thud,_ "Glanni, _come out here._ " _thud thud._

Robbie slid backward as his Mom stood up, arm bumping against Glanni's. As soon as he touched the older half-fae's skin, his magic sense _shrieked_ and he recoiled, head whipping around in alarm. Glanni's eyes were glazed over deep navy blue, and his skin was feverishly hot. Robbie spotted beads of sweat dripping down his face as he struggled to stay up on his knees, supported by the recliner.

"Glanni!" Robbie squeaked under his breath. "What - what are you-"

"He's trying to look," Glanni croaked through gritted teeth. "I can keep him _out_ , I just - I just need to-"

It happened so _fast_. 

Mom's voice. "Glanni, _don't-!"_

Glanni's voice. Not words. Just a scream. His head snapping back, eyes going from navy to an angry electric blue, then falling closed as he tipped backwards, sliding to the ground. His whole body convulsed with such intensity that Robbie was terrified his bandages would rip and his barely-even- _starting_ -to-heal wounds would burst open and he'd start bleeding everywhere, he was already bleeding at the _mouth_ where his teeth had jammed down on his tongue-

The whole house shuddered with a single pulse that cut through Robbie like an impact from a truck. The knocking on the door stopped for a half second, then renewed in a slam that sounded like a person throwing their entire body against the wood.

Mom raised her arms. She was hovering, wings beating so fast there was only a blur of motion to them.

"Robbie, get him upstairs," she ordered, voice desperately strained.

He crawled over to Glanni, pressing down on the man's shoulders to try and stop the convulsions. "Mom, what happened?? Is he _dying?!"_

"Very nearly." Her face was slimmer. Eyes turning silvery blue, like frosted glass... skin darkening, like obsidian, so dark he couldn't see her mouth. Her freckles and her eyes were the only thing standing out, wreathed by a mane of vivid golden hair. "He's too weak, he's an  _idiot_ and he tried to fuel the wards and now they're draining him." Her tone was too steady. Words too factual, too detached.

Like a Court fairy.

"The wards are concentrated on the door," Mom explained, "get him upstairs, they'll let him go."

"What about _you??_ " Only the fringes of Robbie's perception took notice of the fact that the slamming on the door had stopped.

"I'll be fine, sweetheart, now _go!"_

 _Sweetheart._ Still her. Not a Court fae, not all the way, not yet.

Robbie wormed under Glanni's arm, standing slowly and trying not to cave in under the man's weight. Some part of Glanni was still conscious, at least, and his legs twitched forward as Robbie started mostly dragging him away from center of the room, towards the darkened hallway and the stairs. Each hyperventilating breath came keening through clenched teeth, sometimes too quickly for Robbie to hear it at all.

" _Go,"_ Mom insisted again, turning back to the door, now silent. The house creaked, expecting another blow as Robbie made haste for the stairs, ducking with Glanni behind the corner of the wall.

There never came another slamming knock against the door.

Instead, there was a deafening _crash,_ and the elf came through the window.

 

* * *

 

Ana _remembered._

Or rather, her body remembered; the way her wings cut the air, how her bones shifted under her now pitch black skin. The prickling in her palm, and on the nape of her neck, and in the hollows between her eyes and the bridge of her nose. She'd long since lost the memory of the Court - a trick she'd learned from Glanni, to protect herself from sharing their dreams at night - but her muscle memory was as sharp as ever.

She didn't see the elf come somersaulting through the window, scattering glass over the living room. What she saw was a burning blemish against the house's wards, a smear of dull orange and brown, coiled up on the floor. There was barely any definition to its silhouette, aside from the dark pools serving as its eyes, zeroing in on Ana's form, hovering aloft between it and her son and the man she would call _brother,_ if the word didn't annoy him so much.

Ana raised her hands, snapping her fingers. A glamour closed over Robbie and Glanni's vanishing figures. It wouldn't keep the elf from sensing them, if he gave it more than a moment's thought, but hopefully it'd keep him from caring.

It worked. The dark eyes turned on her as he stood up, brushing glass shards from his pants.

She saw the elf tense, arms held out at his sides, slightly hunched.

"...you're Ana," he said, voice hollow as he took in the sight of her full Seelie form.

Her heart didn't even skip a beat. "How did you track us here?"

The elf took one step to the left. Towards the hallway. "Daisy. She happened to say your _full_ name." A pause. "Wasn't hard to find this place after that. It's a small town."

"Small, but not _yours,_ elf," Ana hissed. She could feel her wards screaming _get out, get out get **out,**_ but she forced herself to ignore them. "You're trespassing."

"This isn't Court domain."

She flicked her wrist. The bulb in the table lamp beside the elf shattered, and she felt a note of satisfaction when she saw him flinch. His own wards - weaker woven than a fairy's, but formidable in their own right - hesitated for a half a second, and his aura rippled, betraying the glamour he wore. For only a moment, Ana saw dark spiraling blotches on the elf's arm, so similar to the ones on Glanni's chest, but more crudely healed.

He took another step. She mirrored him.

"It's _my_ domain," Ana retorted coldly. "Have you ever faced a true Seelie before, _hero_ _?"_

"More than you think." His eyes were leaving her, starting to _look,_ and she concentrated her power on the glamour over the hallway. "Where's Glanni?"

"It doesn't matter."

The elf made a grating noise that Ana could've sworn was exasperated, but strained. Desperate. Grabbing at invisible straws. So the house _was_ getting to him, after all. "He shouldn't have involved you!" the elf said, fingers clenching.

"I involved myself!"

His hand moved. Not aggressively; up to his face, then dragging down, fingers parting over a glaring eye. "This is his _own_ fault."

Ana bristled. " _You're_ the one chasing him!"

"He _poisoned_ an _entire town!!"_ the elf shouted, actually _shouted,_ and the sound drove right into the center of Ana's skull. Something red flashed in the elf's aura, up near his head. Scintillating, _vicious._

His crystal.

She locked her eyes on it, and sent a creeping tendril of magic towards it, hoping to find a crack. There were _always_ cracks in elf crystals; unlike fae trees, they couldn't heal themselves. And after fighting Glanni, and yes, being run over by Ana's car, there was no doubt in her mind that there was some splinter to the crystal, an imperfection... a weakness to exploit.

She searched with only a fraction of her focus. All the rest was on _him._

"He could've killed _everyone,"_ the elf was still ranting. "He _knew_ what he was doing." Hands balling into fists, then straightening out again. Ana wasn't sure if the elf's distress was owed to her wards bearing down on his psyche, or if there was some strange emotional conflict in his subconscious. "He could've killed them all, killed the _kids,_ that's - that's not something my Order can let slide!"

Ana's arms snapped up. Two more bulbs shattered, and what light had been contained inside them spun into wisps, and dove for the elf from either side. He noticed a fraction of a second too late to dodge them both, and one ended up clipping the side of his head. Crimson shone in his aura as he dropped to one knee, snarling something foul in Elvish.

"This place is beyond the Order's jurisdiction," Ana spat, "I made sure of that when I came here. You do not belong here."

"Neither does Glanni," the elf retorted. "He can't just keep  _running-"_

"What Glanni does is not your concern anymore! You are dealing with  _me!_ " Ana nearly bellowed, advancing on the elf with kaleidoscope wings and arms flared out to the side, like some madman's fever dream given life. Her bones shifted like the roots that had surrounded her when she took her first breath, and her blood moved slow, like sap. Her thoughts danced like cotton, almost gleeful.

"You, _elf,"_ she snarled, "will _wish_ for a Court when I'm through with you."

The elf tried to stand, one hand rising and claws emerging, but Ana snapped her fingers before he could get all the way to his feet. The glass shards on the floor shot upwards, tearing through his pants and piercing flesh, and the elf let out a guttural howl of pain, toppling and doubling over on the carpet. The air in the room started to spin, with Ana at its center, powerful enough to knock the recliner over and scatter the remaining glass.

Elves were stronger, oh _gods_ they were strong, but fairies were quicker, and so much deadlier up close...

The elf, momentarily crippled, brought to his knees, was too close.

His crystal, his _magic,_ was within reach. Ana dropped her wards, pouring all her power instead into her fingertips, and lunged forward, curling her hand around the elf's throat.

There was a horrid gagging sound as the skin around her fingers turned vivid orange, almost incandescent. For the first time, she saw a shimmer of fear in the elf's eyes, and as he was flipped onto his back, his hands started climb up her arms, unsheathed claws scraping, digging into her flesh, struggling to get her off. One foot planted on the ground, the rest of her body suspended in the brewing storm, Ana met his gaze with all the hatred she could muster.

The elf squirmed. Ana's grip only tightened. His breaths turned to wheezes, and he bucked underneath her, strength flowing from his body into hers. With each twist and jerk, his movements became weaker. Slower.

Her own magic could only keep this up for so long, but if she could just outlast him-

One of his hands dropped, the other still wringing in her wrist feebly.

Ana felt a glimmer of what might have been relief, to see the elf waning so quickly, now if he could just _die faster_.

His eyelids fluttered. She _squeezed_.

A high-pitched whine sounded from the elf's throat, and Ana _almost_ smiled, until the whine turned into a growl, and then a desperate roar. The elf's arm snapped up again, this time reaching up past Ana's arm, past her shoulder, around to her back-

-her _back_ -

Her one weak point, he _knew_ her wards were dropped and they'd been exposed, his fingers curled and found them and he _knew_.

_Oh gods, Robbie run, Robbie **run** -_

Pain erupted down Ana's spine as the elf's hand wrenched back, and she _screamed_.

 

* * *

 

Robbie was barely strong enough to haul Glanni up the stairs, and halfway up they resorted to crawling, with Robbie putting in most of the effort while Glanni just focused on staying alive.

The listless mumbling of profanities assured Robbie that Glanni wasn't _quite_ dead, but it was only a small comfort. He did his best to not look at Glanni's many injuries, or think too hard about the off-colored remnants of glamour that were clinging to his body. The older half-fae's wings were in full view now, hanging over his shoulders like damp towels, with not even a hint of a glow.

The convulsions lessened a little more than halfway up the stairs, but every inch of Glanni had turned clammy, shivering and glistening with sweat.

What was Robbie supposed to _do?_ Carry Glanni out the window, onto the roof outside, and then... down? Through town? Maybe to the grotto on the outskirts, where the magic might at least be more willing to help _them_ than the _elf-_

Glanni groaned. Slumped. Robbie let out a squeak as the man fell down on top of him, sandwiching him to the stairs. Robbie squirmed and shoved Glanni off of him, then regretted it a half second later when he heard another groan, this one more of a hiss. Glanni's fingers curled into the grain of the stairs, his mumblings becoming even more incoherent.

Robbie perched on the stair next to him, biting his lip and wondering _how the hell he was supposed to help Glanni,_ he didn't even _have_ more than a little magic, just enough to make machines work in ways they shouldn't. He couldn't _heal,_ he couldn't drive off the effects of the backlash, and he sure as _hell_ couldn't stop the elf, if he managed to get past-

- _mom-_

Robbie's ears had stopped ringing, he realized with a start. The air pressure in the house had dropped, a strange cold creeping up the stairs in place of the warmth he was so used to feeling.

His toes curled, and shifted instinctively away from the lower level of the house.

 _Get out get out,_ his magic sense demanded in rising panic. _It isn't safe, **g**_ ** _et out._**

Robbie's heart stopped.

_Mom._

There was a split second of silence that allowed him to doubt, and then his blood ran cold as a scream tore into his ears; a sound he'd never heard before, but a voice he would recognize _always._

He knew he shouldn't. It could be a death sentence, for both of them, but Robbie bolted from Glanni's side, raced down the stairs, and came skidding around the doorway to the living room. His heart felt like it wanted to explode from his chest, and every bone in his body wanted to get _away_ from the living room, but he forced himself to look inside.

Robbie wished he hadn't run downstairs. Wished he hadn't heard _anything._

Wished someone would just tear the house down around him, at least then he wouldn't have to _look-_

The elf. He was hunched over on the floor, breathing heavily, massaging his throat, which was covered in _hideous_ bruises that looked more like burns in some places. A bit like Glanni, there was sweat streaming down the side of his head, and he tried to get up, then pitched to the side, doubling over again and coughing. When he finally regained some bit of his composure, and ability to breathe, only _then_ did he look up, and notice Robbie.

The both of them froze looking at each other. If Robbie didn't know any better - _never trust elves, never -_ he would've thought the elf looked scared, or horrified, or sick to his stomach.

Robbie was all of those, and more, _so much more._ His eyes trailed from the elf as he started to stand up, going to a spot on the floor just beside the elf's foot.

To the crumpled thing, shuddering, trying to get back up and _failing._

Something that just a moment ago had been dark black, with eyes of glowing blue, a nightmare embodied. Something that used to be golden, and orange, laced with the faintest hint of black and dark red-

She tried to get up. Robbie put everything he had into silently begging her, _get up, get up get up get **up.**_

The elf coughed. Robbie's eyes darted back to him, and saw both the elf's hands come up to his throat and rub it, and this time, one hand left a smear of blood. It took a moment for the elf to seemingly notice what he was doing, and then that hand dropped down. He stared at it, almost in a daze, before he slowly wiped the blood over his sleeveless shirt.

His eyes went to Robbie, and Robbie felt something _dig._

They stood, each frozen, for a minute while something _pried,_ and _scavenged,_ and-

The piercing in Robbie's head ended. The elf let out a ragged sigh.

"I - I- _"_ the elf stammered hoarsely, eyes flicking behind Robbie. For a second, Robbie realized in horror that the elf had every chance to just go and get Glanni, there was no one left in his way, but the elf took one step, and staggered. Drawing in a rasping breath, the elf looked once more at Robbie, then to the figure on the floor at his feet. His fingers twitched, moving towards her slightly.

Hesitantly.

Robbie read _guilt_ all over the elf's face, but _that_ couldn't be true.

The elf's hand withdrew, and he turned, and limped away towards the front door, spots of blood welling up along his pants. A buzzing in Robbie's head told him the house's wards were still very much active, and they had had _enough_ of the elf's presence. There was probably nothing they could do to hurt him, but between whatever had happened to his throat, and the wards, and the ambient magic drifting in the air...

Robbie didn't move until the elf was gone, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him.

Immediately Robbie sprinted for the decrepit, crumpled _thing_ on the floor. He slammed down onto his knees at her side, not caring about the glass biting into his shins.

"Mom!! Mom! Fuck, _fuck_ , Mom, wake up, please!!" What was he supposed to _do,_ his hands were shaking, he didn't trust himself not to hurt her worse if he touched her-

She groaned. Slowly rocked backwards onto her knees, palms planted on the floor to keep herself steady. Her face came into view slowly, hidden behind her hair, which was drenched in sweat and blood and maybe tears, _probably_ tears, maybe some water from the flower vase that must've been broken during the fight. Robbie felt like a vise came down around every one of his ribs and started squeezing as he saw her eyes.

They were dull, and reddened, and nearly screwed shut in _agony._

He reached out one tentative hand, resting it on the meat of her shoulder, not daring to touch anywhere else, it was too sticky looking and _red-_

"Mom," he croaked, tears starting to stream down his face, "Mom, are you okay??" He wanted to slap himself, _how the fuck could she be okay?_

She barely moved. Her eyes shifted slowly to look at him.

"...the elf?" she rasped.

Robbie could barely breathe. "Gone, he left, he's gone, Mom - Mom, your - he-" He couldn't get the words out. They didn't want to be said, they didn't want to be _real._ He stopped exhaling entirely, feeling like he wanted to throw up. "Mom, he - _fuck_ , Mom-"

"Robbie."

He breathed in sharply. Her hand found his, slowly. It didn't even feel like she had any strength left as she squeezed.

"Is Glanni okay?"

Robbie started sobbing. "He's - he stopped thrashing, I don't know, I think he's okay, but - but - Mom, you're hurt, he t-took-"

She leaned into him. Slid down so her head was in his lap, words slurred and thick and she spoke.

"...I'll be fine, sweetheart." Her breathing was so shallow. "I just need a little sleep."

"But the _elf_ -"

"I don't think he's coming back tonight." She was so quiet, he could barely hear her. "It's okay, Robbie, I'll be fine," she promised faintly.

He choked on whatever protest tried to come out of his mouth next. His hand found its way to her no-longer-golden hair, and started brushing. He didn't know what else to _do._ Tears streaking his face, throat all but closed up, hands just a little smeared with blood-

The only thing Robbie could do was stare as he felt his mom slip into sleep, going still in his lap.

Her skin, all the wrong shades of pale. Her eyes, what he'd seen of them - too dull.

Her magic, which had _always_ been there, soothing and gentle and more ferocious than the sun on the hottest days of summer... _d_ _iminished._

And worst of all.

_Worst of all._

Her wings. Gossamer, painted like a sunrise, soft like velvet.

Ripped to _shreds._ Color all but gone. Snapped like they were nothing but twigs.

Robbie bent over his mom's head, stench of blood and spent magic clogging up his nose, and sobbed into her hair until he didn't have any strength left to stay awake, and passed out on the floor beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *weak laughter*
> 
> ....please don't hate me this isn't even as bad as it gets im sorry *backflips through window*
> 
> Edit: I changed what Ana looks like in Bamf!Mode, she now looks like [this](http://teejay-kay.tumblr.com/post/156018244265/like-a-madmans-fever-dream-given-life-about)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, AFTER *THAT* BUNDLE OF FUN 
> 
> let's do something WORSE

"Robbie."

One half of the lump on the couch groaned at Glanni's prodding, and a hand reached up and swatted at him before sinking back down to rest in a tangle of messy brown hair. The rest of the lump didn't so much as budge, which didn't really surprise Glanni too much; he was just happy that it was still clearly _breathing._

"Kid, come on, get up," Glanni insisted, shaking Robbie's shoulder. "I need to check her back."

Another groan. This one teetering more towards a sigh. "She just got to _sleep,"_ Glanni heard the kid mumble.

"You want her back to get _worse?"_ Glanni threatened tiredly. In any other situation, he'd be inclined to let Ana sleep, gods knew she needed it, but time wasn't on their side. Sooner or later, the elf would show up again. Maybe try and take Glanni's wings next, who knows. "Come on, just-" Ganni leaned over, wrapped his arms around Robbie's waist, and hauled him off the couch, "-I don't know, go get some ice cream or something."

The scrawny teenager let out an indignant squawk as Glanni hoisted him into the air. The second Robbie started squirming - one elbow nearly finding its way to Glanni's still _extremely_ sore ribs - he dropped him onto the floor with a soft thud. They shared a momentary glower before Robbie pulled his knees up to his chest and settled for sitting on the floor, staring up at his mom, just as she started to stir.

"Easy, Ana," Glanni urged as she sat up, eyes bleary behind her hair. Glanni wasn't unnerved by much, but the lack of color in her steel blue eyes was... disturbing.

Not quite as disturbing as the bloody mess of scabs and rapidly forming scar tissue between her shoulders, but _still._

Ana clucked her tongue slowly, still in a waking daze. Her hand searched about on the couch cushions around where Robbie had been sleeping.

"I'm over here, Mom," Robbie spoke up from the floor.

Ana gave a sluggish nod, not quite looking at either her son or Glanni. "How many days?" she asked hoarsely.

"About a day and a half," Glanni said, reaching out and pressing one hand gently across her lower back, turning her around so she was facing away from him. He saw her lips start to move, and before she could get another word out he interrupted prematurely, " _No_ , the elf hasn't come back, _yes_ , Robbie's _still_ fine, _no_ , I haven't touched the wards, and _yes_ , I'm healed enough to fix you, quit worrying."

Her head turned just enough for her to glance his way. Glanni couldn't fathom _how,_ but despite everything, she was _still_ capable of pulling off the 'Mom' glare.

"I was _going,"_ she murmured, "to ask for a drink."

The corner of Glanni's mouth twitched. "You got alcohol sitting around somewhere?"

Ana did her best to roll her eyes. "No." Glanni pouted as she turned to look at her son. "Robbie, sweetheart, if you'd be so kind... hot cocoa, please?"

Robbie was up in a second, nodding eagerly and scurrying off to the kitchen. With the sounds of the kid rummaging through cabinets as white noise, Glanni put his other hand higher up on Ana's back, on her left shoulder, and narrowed his eyes at the line of her backbone. Planting his right thumb on the small of her back, above the magic point there, he traced small circles with his middle finger on her skin. His left hand stayed firm on her shoulder, keeping her from moving too abruptly.

She let out a hiss and dropped her head as deep, rich blue started to creep up from Glanni's hand, through her veins, coiling around her spine. A full-body shiver overcame her as the magic reached the blistered skin and scabs that surrounded where her wings should've attached. The elf had snapped one of them cleanly, and the other was more a mangled mess, and both had started disintegrating by the time Glanni woke up and found out what had happened.

Removing the broken wings entirely wasn't the ideal solution, but neither Glanni nor Ana had enough energy to fully repair the damage, and fairy wounds had a habit of festering. If he _hadn't_ removed them, her own magic would try to heal them on its own, and given how weak she was, without a proper Court or even a proper set of wards to protect her...

Well. Glanni had watched other fairies shrivel away to nothing, but he didn't want Ana to be added to that list.

As he worked about healing her back, Ana slowly struck up a conversation.

"Glanni, are you," she asked, "coping well?"

"You really don't know when to quit, do you?"

Something thudded in the kitchen. Glanni thought he heard Robbie curse, but Ana didn't seem to notice. "Don't waste all your energy on me, Glanni," she continued quietly.

"'Waste'," he parroted sourly. "You're an idiot sometimes, you know that?"

"I'll heal, you know I will. You need to worry about yourself."

"I still have my wings," he countered. "Trust me, I'm _much_ better off than you, so just shut up and sit still and let someone else do all the mothering for once."

That seemed to get her to stay quiet, if only for a minute or two. A smell vaguely reminiscent of chocolate started wafting over from the kitchen.

"He'll come back, Glanni," Ana whispered. "Without a true Seelie to threaten him, without intact wards..."

Glanni grit his teeth and focused harder on his magic. Some of Ana's skin, at the edges of the wound, lost a little of the redness, but so many of the scabs were left, as were the twin gashes that were all the remained of her wings. Glanni's injuries would be long since healed before Ana was even halfway recovered, and even then, there would be scars, and her magic would always be weakened.

"Do you even know where his Order wants to take you??" she asked.

He shrugged. "Does it matter? Elves take, same way that Courts do. I'm not interested in finding out the dirty details."

Ana's fingers curled into the blanket wrapped over her legs.

"...we need to leave," she said, catching Glanni off guard. His hand nearly recoiled from her shoulder at the sound of her words, but he managed to keep his concentration just long enough to bring the healing spell to fruition. As his hands dropped away from her back, Ana straightened up a bit experimentally, clearly having regained a bit of her mobility, if not her full strength.

She looked over her shoulder at Glanni. They stared each other down for a heartbeat; Glanni watching her dulled eyes, Ana listlessly rubbing one hand over her shoulder, not quite daring to touch her back.

"You're serious," Glanni finally said.

Ana nodded, tight-lipped.

Glanni slumped. "We don't - we don't even have a working _car._ And I sure as hell can't shadowstep all of us out of here."

"You've stolen cars before, haven't you?"

They both knew _that_ was true, so he didn't bother answering. Shooting a brief look towards the kitchen, where Robbie was perched on a stool, stirring a small pot of milk, Glanni leaned closer to Ana and intoned heavily, "How, exactly, would we fare _any_ better outside the town, as opposed to here?"

She didn't meet his gaze. "Bloodthirsty he may be, I doubt even your elf is willing to trespass in a Court's forest."

Glanni couldn't have heard that right. His eardrums had ruptured at some point in the last month, maybe he was going partly deaf. "I'm sorry, did you just suggest going back to the fucking _Court??"_

Ana grimaced at the rise in his voice. "Not the Court _itself,_ just - just the forest. The trees might still remember me, they'd protect us-"

"You've been gone for a _decade,"_ Glanni hissed, "forests don't just _forget_ fairies who abandon them. Trust me, my old Court's forest carries a _lot_ of resentment."

"Which do you think the trees would hate _more,_ Glanni? Us, or an _elf?"_

He opted to glare at the floor, hands wringing into his pants.

Ana's hand slowly crept up to touch his, wrapping around and squeezing gently.

"I'm not saying we should stay in the forest forever," she murmured. "Just long enough for the elf to lose our trail. The trees go for miles, if we stayed on the old paths we'd be fine. There are other towns that border the forest, we could get transportation and get away from here." She leaned forward and rested her forehead against Glanni's. "We could get away from _him._ You, me, Robbie. Together."

Glanni's mouth went dry. Licking his tongue over his lips, he weighed the thought of returning to the forest outside Lazytown. Last time he was there, it hadn't liked him, but he'd kept in his shadow for the most part. He didn't have the energy to do that this time, and if Ana was wrong, if the forest hated them regardless of the elf, then in all likelihood they'd never see human civilization again. And that wasn't even taking into consideration how the forest would feel about Robbie.

A hoarse laugh was all Glanni could muster, in the face of Ana's plan.

"And I thought _I_ was reckless," he muttered.

"You are," she assured.

"This is the worst plan I've ever heard in my goddamn life," he said, almost smiling.

"What is?" Robbie came back with three mugs of cocoa, handing one to Glanni, one to Ana, and keeping the last clutched tight in both hands. He hopped up on the couch, sandwiching his mom between himself and Glanni, eying them both apprehensively and very obviously doing his damnedest to _not_ look at his mom's back. "What's the worst plan ever?" he asked again.

Ana and Glanni exchanged a look. She tilted right and rested her head on top of her son's, taking a sip of cocoa and waiting for Glanni to explain.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Remember that old forest, kid?"

Robbie paled slightly. "...the one where I was born?"

"Yep. How do you feel about going back?"

 

* * *

 

"Kid, why - why are you taking _three_ remotes? Why are you taking _any_ remotes?"

Robbie shoved them into his backpack, next to a flip phone and several shirts and his purple blanket. "Because," he justified.

Glanni gave him a blank look as he served as Mom's crutch, helping her about the kitchen, packing food. "Did you enchant them?"

"Yeah." He pulled out one covered in black electric tape. "This one makes everything go dark in a small space." The next one, all the buttons were smeared over with red Sharpie. "This one, um... I think it's like a magic finder? I tried it out in the grotto, the little light on top went crazy, so I'm pretty sure it works."

Glanni whistled. "Nice. Save that one for the forest. What about that last one, with the zip tie?"

Robbie tried not to grin _too_ much. "It either explodes or electrocutes. Can't remember which."

The look of sheer _shock_ on Glanni's face was almost good enough to make Robbie forget _why_ he was packing the remotes. " _Ana_ ," Glanni gasped, scandalized, "what have you been _teaching_ him??"

She laughed. Faint, more of a wheeze, but it was _there,_ and Robbie's head swam to hear it.

"It's your fault, you inspired him," she accused kindly. "Are those your only devices, Robbie?"

"The only ones that I know for sure work."

"If there are any others sitting around that even _might_ work, take them too," Mom said. "I'd rather not leave any magic behind if we can help it."

Made sense. Robbie probably had a few half-complete devices upstairs. "When are we leaving?" he asked as he headed towards the hallway.

"Tonight," Glanni answered. "As soon as the sun goes down."

 

* * *

 

"Are we doing the right thing, Glanni?" Ana whispered when Robbie was out of earshot.

He nudged his head against hers, one wing emerging and coming to wrap around her shoulders tenderly.

"Fuck if I know, but what choice do we have?" He shrugged. "Try not to worry, between the two of us, and those gadgets, Robbie should be fine."

She bit her lip.

"I hope you're right, Glanni."

 

* * *

 

Robbie would miss the orange recliner, and the kitchen lights, and he supposed the playground, and a few of the other kids, the ones who were nice to him.

Everything else...

He shouldered his backpack, tugged his hoodie over his head, and waited in the living room for the sun to set.

 

* * *

 

"Think you can walk, Ana?"

She put on the brightest smile she could muster. "If I need to, I can run." She patted Glanni's cheek. "Stop worrying about me."

He scoffed. "Only when Hell freezes over."

 

* * *

 

As soon as the last glow of sunset faded, they ducked out of the house, and started to make their way across town towards the forest.

 

* * *

 

Three days.

Three damn _days,_ and his crystal hadn't _shut up._ Its screaming wore on for so long he eventually went numb to it, but not before he considered throwing it out of his balloon, or burying it somewhere in the ground, or shattering it entirely. It only went dim when he was focusing on things like picking glass out of his legs, but when his mind was allowed to wander, the damn crystal pried into his head.

It wouldn't stop showing him _her._

Íþró growled and ran his hand through his hair, staring at the town as the sun started to set. It had taken the whole of two days for his throat to get back to letting him breathe properly, and every time he examined it in the pocket mirror he carried in his balloon, the bruises and burns didn't seem to be healing. He'd had to sequester himself from the children in Lazytown, for fear of scaring them with his injury.

Fingers dancing over the burns that took the shape of fingerprints, Íþró squeezed his eyes shut and tried to _stop thinking._

His crystal wouldn't have it. It kept shoving _her_ into his mind, burning her into his eyes the same way she'd burnt his throat.

He'd just wanted her to _get off._ He hadn't even come for her, he just wanted Glanni, but she'd gotten in the way, the same way she had before when she tried to run him over with a car - how he hadn't broken any bones, he didn't know - but this time, gods, it was so much worse. She'd been glamouring herself the first time they 'met', but she'd held no such reservations in that house.

Íþró couldn't help but shiver.

He'd met his fair share of fairies - both Seelie and Unseelie - but that woman had been something else entirely.

Glanni, Íþró could deal with. _Had_ dealt with. He'd tried to keep the half-fae out of trouble, did everything he could to make sure no one else caught wind of his unscrupulous activities, even tried to get Glanni to give up his life of crime, but nothing had stuck. He'd held onto the idea that he could keep Glanni safe, but after what happened to the town-

_A whole town. A whole **human** town._

They could've died. Every single one of them, if Íþró had been any slower, any less vigilant.

He knew Glanni hadn't meant for it to get so out of control.  _Knew_ that there were other towns, other gangs involved, but the people he answered to didn't  _care._

Glanni couldn't _run_ from that. Humans and elves had rules.

If Glanni had belonged to a Court, his fate might have been in their hands, but Íþró knew Glanni was alone. Or thought he knew, at least.

Glanni was _tired_ , when Íþró met him again after almost three years of no correspondance. Vicious and stubborn as ever, but tired, and Íþró could've just taken him back and he would've faced the order's judgment and Íþró would've found some way to make sure Glanni would be  _fine-_

And then _she_ was there, her wisps _draining_ him, and then in the _house-_

Íþró's fingers faltered on his throat, which felt suddenly constricted.

He and Glanni had fought, many, _many_ times, but he'd never been _so close_ to death before.

_He'd just wanted her to get off of him-_

Another shiver. His crystal, the little sadist, gave a flash that seemed almost _smug,_ and showed him again and again and again.

The sound of something delicate _snapping._

Her _scream._

Her boy, staring in horror. Glanni somewhere in the house, maybe dead, Íþró  _had_ heard him scream when he tried to feed the house's ward.

 _Never take a fairy's wings,_ the Order always said. _Take their lives, take away their Courts, but not their wings._

Íþró's hands balled into fists, and he planted them upon the side of his balloon, glaring at the town as the sun dipping under the horizon. Should he have killed her, instead of leaving her crippled? Should he have tried to take Glanni then, and spare the woman and her son, instead of limping away to nurse his own wounds? Should he have taken the boy, like some of the other heroes would have done, instead of leaving him alone with a wounded true Seelie and a criminal?

His crystal squawked.

"Shut up," he rasped. "For _once."_

It didn't. Night seemed to fall quicker than it used to, and the crystal kept shrieking, and after an hour of its cries, Íþró finally caved in and let it into his head, to show him the woman again-

-on her feet.

_Moving._

His head snapped up. The crystal kept flashing, creeping through his skull with a warning, _they're running, they're trying to flee.  
_

So they were smart. They weren't staying in that death trap of a house.

Íþró wondered if this was the woman's idea, or Glanni's. Either way-

He vaulted over the side of the low-floating balloon, hitting the ground in a roll and coming to a halt on the outskirts of town, some ten minute's running distance from their house, which they were almost certainly not at anymore. His crystal conveniently chose _now_ of all times to go dark, leaving him with only the option to search on his own. They could be going _anywhere._

The last thing he needed was the townspeople waking up to a confrontation between magic-users.

Starting to walk into town, Íþró snapped his fingers and called down a glamour of his own, blanketing it over the entire town. He'd only be able to maintain it for the night, but he only needed it to last long enough to find Glanni, and take him, and _end this._

The glamour settled, and took hold, and Íþró's walk turned into a jog, and then a sprint.

_I'll find you, Glanni.  
_

_I always do._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...there's only 2 more chapters after this. Most likely.
> 
> I'm not ready. I'm not ready at ALL. I'm so sorry.


	10. Chapter 10

  
They were cutting their way through the playground when Glanni halted, head cocking to the side, eyes narrowing at the sky. Just behind him, Ana did almost the exact same thing, standing hunched and stiff and eyes darting around, fixated on the dark streets. Between them, Robbie didn't know what was happening just yet, and clutched his backpack straps tighter to try and suppress his high-strung nerves.

After a few moments of silence, he tentatively asked, "What's wrong?"

Ana's hand crept forward, coming to rest on his shoulder. "Glanni?" she whispered, ignoring Robbie's question. "You sense that?"

When Glanni turned to look at them, Robbie felt his stomach flip. Glanni's eyes reminded him of his mom's, when she'd been turning full Fae. In a heartbeat, the dark glimmer disappeared, and Glanni nodded. "He knows." His head snapped back up, craning from side to side. All Robbie could hear were crickets, but he suspected Glanni and Ana had picked up on something else entirely.

"Mom," he reached up and grabbed her fingers, "what's wrong?"

Her skin was cold to the touch. Not clammy anymore, but still unnaturally cold. "There's something... Glanni, is that a _glamour?"_

The man nodded.

Ana shivered. "Over the whole _town?_ He can _do_ that?"

"Not for long," Glanni answered. "He can keep it up for a few hours, till morning, I think. Not longer than that."

Finally, Robbie's brain started to grasp the fear in his mom's eyes, and the wariness in Glanni's twitching fingers. "Why?" he asked, hoping that maybe _this_ time they'd give him a direct answer. "Why would he glamour the town?"

Glanni shrugged, ducking under the slide and motioning for Robbie and Ana to follow. "Probably wants to avoid collateral damage." Robbie couldn't see Glanni's expression, and he was glad for it, as the tone of his voice was darker than anything he'd heard from the man before.

 _Collateral damage._ Robbie shuddered. He heard Glanni continue, "And he probably wants to make sure no one can help us."

Robbie almost wanted to laugh at that.

He squeezed his mom's hand again, then let go. She kept it planted on his shoulder, steadying herself against him as they slunk out from the playground, using the walls and shadows as cover. Robbie wished a cloud would come cover the moon overhead; the streets were so bright, the asphalt seemed to glow pale silver.

Robbie stared at the ground as he followed Glanni, trying not to think too much about anything but his feeble attempt at a ward. Glanni, while still not fully recovered, was healed enough to maintain a ward on himself, and one around Ana as well. They weren't nearly strong enough to keep the elf at bay for long, but the intent was to slow him down, just enough so they could reach the forest.

Best case scenario, they'd get out of town before the elf even caught up to them. Robbie almost let himself hope it'd turn out that way.

Then his mom let out a hiss, reminding him of the wings that weren't there anymore, and he suffocated whatever hope might've been in his heart and started thinking about every way they could run if they were found.

 

* * *

 

"Of _all_ times for you to be temperamental," Íþró snarled, reaching back and flicking his crystal, "it has to be _now??_ "

It flashed at his sharp tone, unhelpfully supplying a rapid series of images, of each human house in town, assuring him that they were safe underneath his glamour, asleep or near to it. Anything that happened in the streets of Lazytown, if it was noticed, would be attributed to a dream; if anyone in town was of the magical persuasion, _maybe_ they'd remember a bit more, and _maybe_ someday they'd realize what had happened, but by then, Íþró would be long gone.

He hoped that after what happened at the house, maybe Glanni would be more open to the idea of just surrendering himself. Íþró didn't want another confrontation with the Seelie woman, Ana, one of them might end up dead, and he feared most that it would be her. She was already crippled, wingless, who knows how her magic would react to the presence of an elf?

She had a son. A boy with gray eyes, just a few shades lighter than the vivid blue that had crept up into Íþró's mind as of recently.

Íþró didn't want this conflict to involve either of them any more than it already had. The town had clearly survived just fine with them in it, oblivious to their presence, unlike those that had hosted Glanni for any considerable duration of time...

The crystal chirped. The warehouse rose in Íþró's memory.

_"Had your fun yet, **hero**?"_

Glanni liked smiling with blood in his teeth.

_"I didn't - you just - how badly are you hurt?"_

_"Oh, please, you made it pretty clear you don't care anymore when you sold me out to your Order."_

Wouldn't that have made it easier, if he didn't care? Íþró vaulted over a wall, silently landing on both feet and one splayed hand. Something moved, too quick for a human, but when he looked, he only found a large black cat, slinking around the rosebushes.

_"I didn't have a choice, Glanni, they - you can't run from this. Come back with me, please."_

He'd nearly said 'come home', but he knew Latibær hadn't been Glanni's home, and not really Íþró's, either. Just a small territory, long since relinquished after he so very nearly failed them.

Glanni hadn't spoken up, he'd just sat pressed up against the wall, cradling an arm that bore nearly identical burn marks as the ones dotting Íþró's arm and part of his shoulder. There had been a shimmer behind Glanni, like the glamour on his wings was failing, and Íþró _knew_ he didn't have the strength to keep running. That was that, it was _over,_ and then-

First Glanni jumped out the window.

Then the greater wisp came soaring in, its light scalding his skin. He hadn't know greater wisps were even _real,_ he thought they were just stories to scare children-

By the time he'd driven the wisp off, almost exhausting his magic in the process, Glanni was long gone, trail of blood leading into an alley, then vanishing. He found the half-fae again, cowering in a motel room, his savior a strange woman who bristled magic through every pore, yet decided a _car_ was a better weapon to use against him.

Breathing gasoline wasn't healthy, even for elves. Íþró hadn't yet gotten the taste out of his mouth completely.

_She never should've gotten involved._

And now she was without wings.

Taking a fairy's wings was a line he'd thought himself incapable of crossing, but he'd crossed so many lines for Glanni already, why not that one, too?

His crystal flashed again, briefly spitting out the image of Glanni, limping in the dark, eyes trained on the sky. Íþró's skin crawled; they were  _near,_ somewhere, but the crystal dimmed again before he could make it try and pinpoint them. Would he spot them better from a rooftop, maybe? The townhouse was near, and taller than most of the surrounding buildings.

Íþró sprinted across the street, springing off a wall and catching a ledge below a window. Scrambling over the tiles to the roof, he found himself regretting that he hadn't brought his spyglass along.

As it turned out, he didn't need it.

From his perch, he spotted something dark slip between two houses a block and a half away. Heading towards the forest.

_Glanni._

Íþró front-flipped off the roof and hit the ground running.

 

* * *

 

Glanni _felt_ the elf's eyes, long before he saw the elf in person. His magic sense started ringing, not loud enough to suggest immediate danger, but it was certainly urging that he find cover, quickly.

Reaching back, he latched onto both Robbie's and Ana's wrists and dragged them towards a gap between two buildings. "He saw us," he hissed, "come on."

"What?" Robbie squawked quietly. "How? Where is he?"

"I don't know, kid, just shut up and move," Glanni pleaded. Ana stumbled as he pulled her, and Robbie all but ripped his wrist out of Glanni's grasp, keeping pace beside his mother and grazing his knuckles against her thigh every so often, tense and ready to catch her in case she fell. Glanni heard her murmur some soft reassurance to him, but for the moment his focus was entirely on the dark streets.

Elves couldn't hide in shadows. In fact, they could barely hide themselves at all, unless they wove strong glamours, which Glanni doubted the elf had the strength to do, even after taking three days to recover from his fight with Ana. It was the one advantage they might have against him _._ The elf would have to be out in the open, and run them down if he wanted to catch them.

At least, Glanni hoped that would be the case. He'd never _seen_ his elf use long-range magic.

But there was always a first time. And he knew his elf was desperate.

He led Ana and Robbie another half a block down the road before they dipped into another short alley, this one containing a large dumpster, behind which Ana promptly sank to her knees, clasping her hands in her lap. Her eyes locked on the ground, and Glanni couldn't even _begin_ to describe how unsettling it was to see what looked like a _nauseated_ expression on a Seelie's face. Sick fairies were dead fairies.

He made an effort to look anywhere _but_ Ana's face, deciding to substitute Robbie's instead.

Robbie had started rubbing circles on his mother's back. His eyes were looking between Glanni and the street. "Is he close?" he whispered.

Glanni cocked his head to the side again. The street was, for the moment, lacking in the sound of ominous backflips. "Not yet."

"But he _saw_ us?"

"Just me, probably," Glanni muttered. "He's picked up a knack for spotting my wards, he-"

Glanni came to a halt, head swimming with a bad idea.

"Ana," he rasped, snapping his fingers in front of her face, "you took some knives from the kitchen, right?"

In a near-daze, she nodded. Robbie looked appalled, and just a little intrigued. Ana's hand shifted back to the small tote she'd been carrying, and fished out a single cutting knife, slightly serrated.

"Glanni?"

He met Robbie's gaze, and reached out to pat the kid's head. Robbie shrank away from the gesture, eyes wide.

"...you have a bad plan, don't you?"

Glanni's teeth were pure white against the darkness, and his throat and chest ached worse than they ever had before.

"Keep your mom safe, kiddo." The knife felt so cold in his palm, like needles of ice. "Get to the forest. I'll catch up."

It was a lie.

But he was good at telling those, and Robbie didn't notice.

 

* * *

 

Ana heard Glanni and Robbie talking, vaguely. Her focus was more on keeping the contents of her stomach in check. Hands wringing her skirt, she kept her breathing as even as possible, and tried not to think too hard about the smell of the garbage in the dumpster.

"Get to the forest," Glanni was telling Robbie. "I'll catch up."

Robbie's protests were smothered by what Ana guessed was Glanni's hand. In her peripheral vision, she saw him raise a knife to his lips and shake his head. "Trust me, kid, this has worked before."

Her son snorted disbelievingly.

"You and your mom just get out of town. I'll handle the elf."

Ana's head swam.

_Knife._

_Elf._

On his own, in a dark town, no one around but an elf. He'd told her this story before, smug look on his face as he shared _every. Detail_.

_Glanni, don't you dare, don't you **dare**._

She felt Robbie's thin arms under hers, helping her to her feet.

"Glanni," she whispered hoarsely. To her satisfaction, she saw him freeze up a bit, and she did her best to look stern. "Just..." She sighed. "Be careful."

He twirled the knife in his fingers, faking a smile.

"No promises."

He slid the knife down his sleeve, and snapped his fingers. His shadow curled up around his body, and he disappeared, and the air was cold where he had stood not a second before.

 

* * *

 

Íþr's head snapped up fast enough to give himself whiplash.

The air smelled like ink, and burnt plastic, and a hint of perfume.

_Glanni._

Freezing in the center of town, just near an intersection and an old maple tree, Íþró swept his gaze over the streets, hunting either for a trace of a magic aura, or for a hunched man in a catsuit, lurking somewhere in an alleyway. He didn't sense any of the Seelie woman's magic - it tasted like citrus, he remembered _very well -_ but that didn't surprise him, if she had any magic left she'd be conserving it.

No, all he could sense was _Glanni,_ sitting heavy in the air, a pink and dark blue stain in his peripheral vision, not quite allowing itself to be seen just yet. Narrowing his eyes, Íþró started to pace slowly, circling the tree and picking apart the density shifts in the atmosphere. In some places it felt tense, in some it was cold, and in no place did it feel _right,_ it all felt tainted, either by Glanni's power or his own.

He'd have to make _sure_ to personally lift the glamour tonight, before he left. It would fade on its own, but he'd rather not leave any loose bits of magic around to _fester,_ especially in a town bordering a Court. Lazytown had enough ambient magic as it was, leaving trace of elf magic would only cause problems.

Part of him wanted to blame Glanni. Trouble followed that man _everywhere._

The smell of perfume intensified. Sweet, almost a little tangy, it settled inside Íþró's nose, itching fiercely.

He paused beside the maple, halfway inside the shadow it was casting in the moonlight, scratching at the skin below his nose-

-the _shadow._

Íþró sprang backwards, spinning in the air and crouching low and defensively as the shadow of the tree started to morph. Like a silhouette carved from tar, a form rose from the tree's shadow, complete with spindly arms and legs, and as the face formed, a weary scowl. Íþró tried not to look, tried to keep his focus on the _eyes,_ but he couldn't help but notice the man wore only his coat, no shirt underneath. Instead it was just bare skin, and bandages.

Glanni hunched, meeting Íþró's gaze with considerable venom.

"So."

Íþró straightened. Firmed his jaw. "So," he echoed.

Glanni rubbed the back of his neck, cracking it once. "I thought even someone like _you_ couldn't take a fairy's wings." His smile was as fake as Íþró had ever seen it. "I don't like being proven wrong."

Íþró's hands balled into fists at his sides. "I didn't  _want_ to take her wings, she just-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night," Glanni muttered with a dismissive wave. The hand fell limp to his side a second later, and he seemed to sway on his feet. His gaze left Íþró for a second, wandering up to the sky, and then back down. "Empty streets, just you, just me. Now why does _that_ sound familiar?"

Íþró took an uncertain step forward. Glanni didn't turn into smoke, or lash out with needle-sharp darts of shadow, so he took another slow step, then another.

"Glanni-"

"You would've kissed me by now, usually."

Íþró came to a jarring halt, feeling his throat run dry. That was the absolute _last_ thing he needed to think about right now, and yet - and _yet -_

He did everything in his power to avoid looking directly at Glanni's eyes, or his teeth, or the lingering bruises on his cheek. "Glanni," he said, flicking his tongue over his lips, "the Order isn't going to let this go. You nearly killed humans. Human _children_."

"They were never going to _die,"_ Glanni insisted sharply. "I know it got out of hand, but it was never _that_ bad. Your little hero complex is the reason we're in this mess right now."

Íþró tested another step forward, and Glanni still didn't vanish. He just kept favoring one side, fingers twitching listlessly, his shadow only a shadow and not a weapon, not yet, at least. He looked the same way he had in the warehouse, when the smile had fallen from his lips and he caught his breath and his face turned into a scowl. Glancing down the streets behind Glanni, Íþró attempted to distract with, "Where are the other two? Ana and Robbie?"

"Gone. They don't need dead weight slowing them down." The half-fae's eyes turned dark, almost turning to their navy blue, but not quite. "Why do you care? Last I checked, you only wanted _me._ Leave them out of this."

Glanni was within only a few feet of Íþró now, still not shying away. _How much energy had it taken him to shadowstep_ , Íþró wondered. Too much, probably. Glanni healed quick, but not _that_ quick, and Íþró guessed the house wards had done some measure of damage to him, when he found them, when Ana showed her Seelie form and her wings and _he took-_

His crystal started to chirp. Fearing images of torn wings, Íþró pushed all his energy into making it _shut up,_ and it did, at least for the moment. He knew where Glanni was, it didn't matter what happened to Ana or Robbie. If they were smart - and so far it seemed they were - they'd be long gone by now, safe in a fairy forest, leaving Glanni's fate in Íþró's hands.

"Don't run," Íþró tried to demand, but it came out sounding more like begging. "I'd rather you not pass out." _Or die._

Glanni scoffed. "Wouldn't that make this easier for you?"

"Just - just _come with me,_ Glanni."

"And let the Order lock me up in one of their prisons?" Gods, he sounded so _tired._ Íþró took another wary step. Glanni's glower scraped over his body, up and down, finding its way back up to Íþró's eyes eventually. "You know I'd get out."

"I'm sure you will." He wouldn't. Elves didn't keep prisoners, they kept - they kept _playthings,_ trophies, and Íþró wasn't going to let that happen. He _couldn't._

Íþró stopped arm's length from the man. They stared each other down in silence for a tense minute. Íþró observed that they were almost the same height now, given just how much Glanni was hunching into his coat, one arm pressed over his bandages. Hunched, bandaged, pale as death and shifting back and forth between the heels of his feet and his toes, shoes making just the softest clicking noises on the pavement...

He breathed a few elvish words under his breath, and a binding spell took shape around his fingers. Slowly, he reached out to take one of Glanni's wrists, to secure the spell and keep Glanni tethered.

The half-fae didn't move as Íþró's fingers grazed his arm. Didn't move as Íþró knit the spell around his wrist, tying them together in lieu of the elf possessing handcuffs, which Glanni would've been able to pick anyway. There was a hesitant second when Íþró was tempted to slip his fingers between Glanni's, the same way the fae had once or twice before, always catching Íþró of guard.

_"You're a menace."_

_"And you love it."_

"It didn't need to be like this, Glanni," Íþró murmured.

Glanni's eyes were hollow.

"Yes, it did." He moved. Not running. _Forward_.

Íþró's hand slipped from Glanni's, but the binding spell held firm, and his instincts surged defensively as the man's head dipped forward and down just a bit and-

Íþró sucked in a sharp gasp as Glanni's lips found his and he almost closed his eyes, _almost._ Glanni tasted like a hint of sugar, and smelled like some flower Íþró had never heard of, some blossom from a Court that no longer held Glanni's loyalty. His chin tipped back, and Glanni leaned forward, and the sugar turned bitter and started tasting like regret, like too many days spent playing their roles and not _together_ , like too many times dancing around saying _stay with me, **please**_.

Just one more time.

He knew he didn't deserve it. But he'd give himself that much.

 

* * *

 

The elf, _his_ elf _, his Íþró,_ smelled like wicker and leather and tasted like cherries. His voice pounding in Glanni's head, as powerful as his own heartbeat.

_"It didn't need to be like this."_

Maybe. _Maybe._

It was too late now to hope for anything different.

Glanni drank in the kiss, dared to cherish it, and wish for more, but something cold against the inside of his sleeve reminded him of every wound beneath his bandages, and every cut the elf had received in kind, that were better hidden from view.

 _His_ eyes were open. Íþró's were not.

Glanni cupped one hand, the bound one, around the back of the elf's neck.

The other, he thrust towards Íþró's chest.

 

* * *

 

Íþró's crystal _screamed,_ showing him _blood_ and  _silver_ and _steel_ , and his eyes flew open to find Glanni's gaze turned vicious, and deadly, and _deep navy blue._

He pulled back from the kiss as it turned sour, every muscle in his body shrieking in time with his crystal, now glowing angry crimson. Pulse pounding in his throat, he recoiled from Glanni, instinct demanding he _move._ His torso snapped to the side, just barely dodging the jab of a knife, a knife he'd been too _stupid_ to look for, Glanni didn't _use_ knives, but there it was and it still managed to slash across his ribs and he _hissed._

His arm shot up, carrying Glanni's with it, throwing them both off balance. The knife came back, and Íþró's reflexes took over, grabbing for Glanni's arm and twisting at the elbow and turning all the momentum on its owner-

Íþró fell, dragging Glanni down with him, on _top_ of him as the knife turned.

A wet _shnk_ hit Íþró's ears. For a moment he didn't know what it was.

Then Glanni's whole body froze up, the blue faded from his eyes, and his face contorted in pain.

Horror seized Íþró's gut.

_"Glanni!"_

 

* * *

 

Something warm and sticky trickled down Glanni's hip, and his hand slipped from the hilt of the knife as a grimace overtook his face. It didn't even _hurt properly,_ all the other times the elf had wounded him his body made sure he _knew,_ but - but -

His body curled inward over the Íþró as they slammed to the ground, and the impact jammed the knife in _deeper._

_"Glanni!"_

Oh, what, _now_ Íþró cared? Even an elf couldn't fake terror, not like that. And not Íþró, he was many things, but a good liar wasn't one of them.

So.

He tried to get up off the elf. His entire body cramped around his stomach, and he toppled sideways, ending up on the ground in a shivering mess instead of anywhere helpful. Still there was something cold and sharp and metal in his stomach, just below his lowest rib. Still he couldn't _feel_ anything around it, he could feel himself shaking, he could see red on his palm as his other hand was still attached to the elf now scrambling up onto his knees... he just couldn't _feel_ all the _pain,_ not the way he _should._

"Glanni, fuck, I didn't - you  _stupid_ fairy, you shouldn't have - _Glanni!_ "

Íþró swearing? That was new. He tried to sit up, maybe smack some sense into that elf.

Oh. Oh, _there_ was the pain. Splitting up his abdomen like he'd swallowed several razor blades, and then maybe a stick of dynamite, too.

_So._

That was one more promise he hadn't kept.

 

* * *

 

It overtook Ana so suddenly, her legs nearly gave out beneath her. She heard Robbie gasp sharply as she lurched to a halt, ramrod stiff as _something_ came charging down the alleyway they'd just exited, finding her ankles and roaring up through her shins until it found her ribcage and took root. Sitting like a mad crow, or a viper, it felt like it started pecking away at her lungs, trying to drag her back into town piece by piece.

Her vision was tainted deep, deep blue.

"Mom?" Robbie sounded terrified. "Mom, are you-" His voice cut off as the wave of magic rushed down the street, and he gasped sharply.

Ana's magic swelled, as if her wings were still there. She knew Robbie sensed it, too, even if he didn't fully understand.

Seelies could call for their Courts to help them, when they were at their very weakest, but Glanni had no Court.

He only had _Ana,_ and _Robbie._

Her head snapped to look down the alley, pink and blue alternating in her vision. She dropped her arm from Robbie's shoulders and started limping back towards the center of town.

"Mom!" Robbie rushed up behind her, grabbing her wrist. "Is that - is that Glanni??"

"He needs us," she said through grit teeth.

Robbie looked distraught. "Is he hurt?"

 _No._ "Yes." _It's worse than that._

Ana wasn't sure if his magic was coming back to warn her, or beg for help, or because it no longer had a home in him, because he was cold, because he was _dead._

Either way, it called her.

And as any fairy should, when family was at stake, she listened.

 

* * *

 

Glanni felt his magic leave, calling the way it would if he had a Court.

Would Ana hear him? He doubted Robbie would, or that he would understand if he did.

Was Ana even strong enough to help him, without her full strength?

He groaned and tried to sit up again, making it a little farther this time. The skin around the knife felt clammy, and he could feel sweat dripping down his face. The elf was in front of him, crouched, murmuring something in Elvish with an urgency that baffled Glanni. Him being dead would solve all the elf's problems, there wasn't a point in _healing_ him, if that's what Íþró was doing.

Ah, but there was _some_ good to this situation. The elf was still distracted.

Glanni tore his attention away from the blood oozing out of his stomach and focused his magic on the binding spell connecting him to Íþró.

So maybe it hadn't all gone _quite_ according to plan.

But he could still make sure the elf wouldn't go after Ana and Robbie next.

 

* * *

 

 _"You idiot, Glanni, you **idiot,"**_ Íþró hissed in Elvish under his breath as his fingers shifted around the knife buried in Glanni's flesh.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen at _all._

 

* * *

 

With every step she took following the trail of Glanni's magic, there seemed to be _more_ of herself.

That was... worrying.

"Robbie," she said, voice dropping several octaves, "Stay back."

"I can _help_ ," he stated resolutely. He slung his backpack onto one arm and fished out the remote with the zip tie. "He's my family, too."

Her hand drifted back to rub his head, and she felt something akin to an electric shock pass between them. "I know, sweetheart." They were close. So close, she could smell the elf's magic, too, and-

Ana's nose crinkled, and her eyes went wide. Pupil and iris started to merge.

_Blood._

"Stay _back,_ Robbie," she intoned again. "But - give me your device. It might help."

Robbie chewed his lip like he wanted to argue, but handed over the remote in the end. "Stay in the alley," Ana ordered. "Don't come out until I come get you."

"...okay."

 

* * *

 

His crystal started screaming again, but instead of showing silver and steel, it showed gold, and obsidian black.

His hands pulled away from Glanni sharply, and he stood up just in time to see _her_ coming towards him, emerging from an alley and throwing something vaguely rectangular towards his face.

There was an acrid burst of magic, and the object clocked the side of his head. For a strange second, nothing happened.

Then the object fell, hit the ground, and an arc of electricity shot up and crashed through Íþró's body.

 

* * *

 

Glanni felt the binding spell _snap,_ and something came surging up the street, a magic that _shouldn't be there._

Her wings were _gone,_ how-?

It didn't matter, it didn't _matter,_ there was a screaming elf just above him and small bursts of lightning nipping at his ankles. One hand bracing the knife, Glanni started dragging himself away from Íþró, trying to get back up onto his feet. He found a crutch in the form of the looming maple, staggering up against it, dripping blood down one leg and almost hyperventilating.

His shadow tried to coil up, comfort him, but didn't make it far before a dull hum rattled through the earth, and a new magic came roaring to life around him, scaring his shadow back down around his feet.

Glanni's eyes darted between Íþró and the figure limping towards them. Her skin was turning silken black, eyes radiant blue, hair gold.

All her magic. _Without_ her wings.

A distant memory surfaced of a Seelie burning so bright she seemed to overwhelm the entire forest, so powerful she seemed to almost burn herself out of existence for a brief moment.

He wanted to tell her to _stop,_ now that he was thinking clearly, now that he was fully aware of the depth of the pain and the fact that the knife had missed major organs, and he would just need to be _careful_ and he'd be _fine._

Then the tree behind him _groaned_ _,_ and below his feet Glanni felt a tremor.

Ana's freckles started to glow against her skin.

Just as the elf seemed to shake off the electricity from Robbie's device, the ground shifted, and the maple's roots erupted around Íþró's legs.

 

* * *

 

Íþró forgot Ana, forgot _Glanni,_ forgot Lazytown and Latibær and _everything_ as his crystal  _howled._

_FAE FOREST, FAE FOREST-  
_

The roots broke the pavement first around the manhole beside the tree, throwing the metal disk ten feet away. Íþró felt his claws emerge, splintering bark as he tried to pry off the shoots growing around his legs. Tiny thorns digging into his calves, his thighs - the pavement almost giving way to soft dirt, where there were _more roots-_

He _roared._ His crystal flared crimson, bright enough to illuminate his whole body, glittering in his eyes as they turned the same shade as Glanni's blood.

There couldn't _be_ a forest here, but it _was,_ and it wanted him, it would _take_ him-

He wouldn't let it.

He _wouldn't._

Íþró shouted hoarse Elvish, calling into the earth.

Fae roots stretched deep, but elves had allies that lay _deeper._

Íþró thrust his arms skyward, releasing his hold on his magic, and tasted metal in his mouth.

The ground cracked again, and wrought iron torn from Lazytown's sewers burst up amongst the roots.

 

* * *

 

Robbie _had_ been trying to watch from the alley, eyes held firm on his mom's back as she slowly moved up the street, towards the tree where he could just barely make out Glanni on the ground, elf hunched over him like some kind of predatory beast.

His magic keened wildly, urging him to _look away,_ and as his eyes started to water, he had to obey.

He felt the tremor run through the ground, and he ducked behind a building, covering his ears and trying to block out the colors, and the smells, and the sounds.

A scream, from the elf.

A rumble from the earth.

_Gold and pink and red and black and blue._

Robbie curled into himself and waited for it all to end.

 

* * *

 

"Glanni-"

She was _there._ He knew she was, he could feel her hand on his arm, her other on his stomach. He could see her, but - he couldn't. Not just because of the midnight black skin, absorbing all light and channeling it into the glow of her freckles and hair. No, she was - she was blurred, like she was standing on the other side of a bonfire, and her skin felt slick and cool, like glass.

"You're hurt," she breathed.

"I'll survive," he grated.

Her eyes narrowed doubtfully. A tingle ran down Glanni's spine, and he flinched to the left as another root emerged, flinging dirt everywhere and diving towards the elf. All the roots wreathed up around him as he let out a strangled roar, arms grasping at the sky in desperation, his crystal flashing so bright it hurt Glanni's eyes to look directly at it. The roots started to pull down, as Ana started to tug Glanni away from the tree.

The ground rumbled again. Glanni met Ana's eyes, and for a quiet moment he only saw the same confusion he felt as the roots seemed to go still.

A half-second later, the elf's roar cut off, the roots twitched, and the pavement split apart again. Glanni's knees buckled as yet another piece of metal jabbed into his body, this time his leg.

Ana tried to lift him up. He shoved her away.

The air took on the smell of rubber, and rain, and maybe chlorine, too.

"Ana!" Glanni tried to crawl forward, but another metal bar shot out of the earth, piercing several roots and finding his hand, crushing two fingers as it wrapped around and yanked him down. "Ana, _run!"_

Her eyes turned gold.

" _Not,"_ she snarled in pure fae speech, _"without you!"_

"Ana, you fucking idiot, you _have_ to, Robbie _needs-"_

A piece of rebar circled up around Glanni's throat, turning his words into a choked screech as the iron burned his skin.

Ana let out a furious scream, hands curling into fists on either side of her head, before she brought them down and collapsed to her knees and released a flood of magic the likes of which Glanni didn't even realize was _possible_ for a single fairy to achieve.

Oh, but-

Desperation was such a strong motivator. And so was love. And so was _self-sacrificial stupidity._

He tried to yell for her to run as the magic crashed over him, and the rebar loosened just a bit, letting him breathe-

The maple rumbled again.

The roots swarmed around Ana, dragging the elf with them.

 

* * *

 

Íþró thrashed against the roots as he felt them pull downwards. One of his ankles gave out under the strain, twisting and maybe breaking and sending spikes of pain up into his torso.

They started to wrap around his face, muffling his elvish incantations, his begging for the metal and the deep, deep earth to _save him._

He opened his mouth to try and get out one last verse, to drop the glamour _now_ and bring its energy back to him so he could _fight-_

-a root jammed into his open mouth and tore through his cheek.

His vision went red.

 

* * *

 

The colors were _too bright._

His wards couldn't take it.

Robbie slumped down into a ball on the ground and started sobbing.

_Make it stop, make it stop, make it **stop-**_

 

* * *

 

The roots climbed around Ana, trying to cocoon her, protect her, but the metal had already found its way inside.

It burrowed into her bicep and splintered bone, and she would've screamed if she'd had any strength left.

But she had _nothing._

Her thoughts raced to the maple.

_Don't let the elf go, don't let him go, no matter what happens, **do not let him go.**_

 

* * *

 

Glanni didn't have the energy to hate himself for thinking, _at least I got one last kiss out of him._

The rebar around his throat tightened again, and he stopped trying to heal the wound around he knife. He let his muscles relax, and his wings unfurl, even as sharp things bore down on them, tearing pieces away from his clothes and flesh.

Every last shred of magic he had, he forced into the hand that could still move, and reached into the surging storm of roots and metal for Ana.

 

* * *

 

It had been a long, long time since the maple heard a Seelie's call. The last time, it'd been a mere sapling, and it had ached for the touch of magic for _so long._

A Seelie's words were binding.

_Do not let the elf leave._

And so. It would do just that, it would _keep_ the elf.

It did as trees, as _roots,_ knew best.

It would _bury_.

 

* * *

 

Ana felt Glanni's hand, somewhere in the dark, in the crushing pain.

She couldn't _think_ anymore. Not full thoughts. Just half-second flickers of faces.

A name.

_Oh, gods-_

_Robbie-_

 

* * *

 

Glanni felt fingernails - not his own - dig into his palm.

_Ana, what have I - what have you - what have **we** done-_

He held tight. His thoughts flew elsewhere, away from the roots coiling up his chest.

_Robbie-_

 

* * *

 

Íþró couldn't _see,_ he couldn't _move,_ the fairies were _somewhere_ and his claws wouldn't work and his crystal was screaming and all he could see was black-

He opened his mouth as much as he could to scream, and dirt poured down his throat into his lungs.

_Lítillblá I'm sorry-_

 

* * *

 

The maple's roots twisted downwards, and the asphalt cracked open. A crimson and golden and faintly pink glow erupted from between the roots, pulsing once, twice. The crack widened to a chasm, edges crumbling, and into its maw, the tangled roots submerged, metal torn down with them, and the glow faded.

The earth closed up, leaving a spiderweb of thin roots, loose dirt, and a manhole lacking its cover.

A handful of maple leaves fell down, and the street stood quiet, and still, and empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this was hands down the hardest chapter to write... also the longest chapter. I think my entire soul hurts.
> 
> Just one more after this.
> 
> And thank you all so, SO much for enjoying this, for sticking with it, for commenting and kudos and bookmarks and everything, it's so amazing to see that people like this story, and such fantastic motivation. I love this fandom, I love you people, you're all awesome, keep it up <3
> 
> (I'm not sure if that's actually a maple in the middle of Lazytown xD oh well)
> 
> (I also know in most of the fics I've seen, elves are allergic to iron, and that's still kind of the case here. Iron isn't great for elves, but it obeys their magic like their crystals do, and hurts fairies far worse.)


	11. Chapter 11

Robbie waited, as his mom instructed.

At some point he must've passed out from the exertion of maintaining his wards against the barrage of _colors_ , because he woke up shivering, and the moon was higher in the sky than it had been when he'd last looked. His backpack and the duffel bag lay at his feet, undisturbed, a little damp from a puddle in the alley. As he stirred, his back protested against all movement, sore and aching and _cold._

His neck cracked as he stretched, and stood up. The sound was jarring against the silence.

Robbie froze.

It was - no, that wasn't _right._

It was so _quiet._

Legs unsteady, Robbie poked his head around the corner of the wall, hoping to see his Mom, or Glanni, or better yet, both of them, maybe healing each other or resting for a bit before coming back to get him.

He squinted.

There was _nothing._ Some scattered maple leaves, that was it.

Slowly, Robbie inched out from the alleyway, abandoning the bags and walking out into the open, nerves on a hair-trigger and magic instincts combing over his surroundings with intense scrutiny. Just because he couldn't _see_ them didn't mean they weren't there, and that applied to the elf, too, he could be lurking and waiting for Robbie to come out of hiding.

Robbie's magic picked up a cluster of colors near the maple. More gold than anything, but a little pink, and a little red. The air smelled ever so faintly of perfume, and chlorine, and fresh mulch and cinnamon.

Maybe blood, too.

He shivered against a new chill that swept down the street, and glanced around the maple, hoping maybe the trail of colors and smells led around it somewhere, maybe to the playground, or back to the house, or-

Nothing, nothing, _nothing._

It just _stopped,_ right around the maple.

Robbie's head snapped around. The colors started halfway between the alley and the tree, pure gold, and there was a trail of dull brown coming west, but none of the colors _went_ after that. They came, and they collided around the tree, and they _stopped._

His throat went dry. Hunching over warily, Robbie raised his voice and called, "Mom?"

Nothing. The only change he noticed was the air turned colder.

He swallowed. Tried again, voice louder, and hoarser this time.

"Glanni??"

He could _feel_ them, _where were they?_

At least - at least he _thought_ he could feel them, he was so sure he could just a minute ago-

He licked his lips uncertainly. There was something else he could try, it was so, _so_ dangerous but he didn't know what else to _do_ right now.

"Íþr... Íþróttaálfurinn?"

Robbie squeezed his eyes nearly shut, cringing and waiting for the elf to come springing out of the dark, or teleport, or _something,_ waited for the elf to appear and maybe he could at least explain what _happened-_

A few leaves fell from the maple, and-

_-nothing. Happened._

Robbie choked, and slumped down to the ground on his knees, arms wrapped around his chest, stomach curling like he was going to throw up.

Maybe they were just somewhere else. Somewhere out of earshot, did magic even _have_ a range, how far away did elves have to be to not hear someone say their _name?_

_They wouldn't have left me, they wouldn't-  
_

He couldn't go to the forest now, it would eat him alive without Mom and Glanni's help. His magic, however much of it there was, wouldn't be enough to keep an entire forest at bay. And he couldn't _go_ anywhere else on his own, there wasn't a _point_ to going if - if the elf wasn't -

Maybe they were just - _somewhere._

He'd wait. He couldn't _do_ anything else.

Robbie went back for the bags, and shouldered one, and dragged the other behind him. He skirted around the maple, not daring to get too close, he could feel it murmuring and he didn't know _why,_ he just knew it had its own colors now and it reminded him too much of the trees in the Court.

He stumbled home under cover of darkness, slipped in through the door, and across the broken glass on the carpet to the orange recliner.

Maybe in the morning, they'd be back, and this would all make sense again.

 

* * *

 

They weren't back in the morning.

They weren't back by the end of the _week_.

He checked the maple again, and found their colors dimmed. The other kids wondered where their _hero_ had gone, and Robbie checked the edge of town, and couldn't find his air balloon. He could feel something tingling on his spine, insisting that he look at the ground, or the sky, or anywhere _but_ a particular open space, perfectly sized to hold a glamoured balloon.

He didn't try to go looking for it.

He went back home, to the house with still-broken windows, and screamed into a pillow until he passed out again.

 

* * *

 

A knock on the door deceived him into _hoping_ for a split second, before Robbie realized it was too timid to be either Glanni or his Mom, and the elf certainly wouldn't have bothered _knocking._

"Robbie?"

He flinched at the sound of her voice. He was lying on his back on the kitchen floor, a cereal box at his side, and he hadn't stopped staring at the ceiling for an hour and a half. His back hurt, and his head ached from no sleep, but he couldn't bring himself to move.

"Robbie?" she said again, knocking more insistently.

Robbie pressed his knuckles into his eyes. "Go away, Bessie."

The knocking stopped abruptly. "Robbie! Are you okay?" Despite being muffled by the door, her concern came through all too clearly. "I saw - I saw the window was broken, and I haven't seen you or your mom around for a while, is everything okay?"

Of fucking _course._ Why _wouldn't_ she remember, why wouldn't she see the window and come _snooping._ Did the wards not affect her, being part siren? Or were they just not strong enough anymore, without someone who knew what they were _doing_ to maintain them?

"Go _away,"_ Robbie pleaded.

"Robbie, what happened?"

 _They're gone, they're **dead,**_ _and I don't even fucking know **why.**_

"Go away!!"

"I just want to help-"

He shot up from the floor, back cracking painfully. "I don't _need_ your help, Bessie, just go away and _leave me alone!"_

Silence. Then, in a voice that sounded tight-lipped, and strained, "Fine. Goodbye, Robbie."

Her footsteps faded. Robbie buried his face in his hands, shoulders trembling. He didn't cry, his eyes were too sore for that, and what was the use of crying anymore? It wouldn't _do_ anything.

It wouldn't _bring them back._

 _Nothing_ would do that.

 

* * *

 

Robbie couldn't stay in the house. He came to that conclusion after he woke up in a cold sweat, magic screaming, as the wards tried to crawl inside him and feed off his magic to sustain themselves.

But where the hell _else_ was he supposed to go??

 

* * *

 

"Who has _seventeen passwords?"_ Robbie muttered to himself as he perched in front of a laptop on the kitchen counter.

Glanni did, apparently.

It took Robbie nearly an hour just to _remember_ all the different passwords Glanni had used from time to time when staying at the house, and he was sure he probably forgot a few. However, after whittling down the nonsense passwords that went to other websites, he _finally_ figured out the right combination to get into Glanni's _several_ bank accounts, all of which were under different aliases.

Glanni had... a _lot_ of money. A scary amount, Robbie realized.

After finding the right PINS and the right accounts, Robbie crept out to an ATM beside the town bank. It didn't take much magic to convince the machine to ignore the withdrawal limit, and Robbie filled a backpack with as much cash as he could possibly fit inside.

He took the long way back from the ATM, prowling the outskirts of town, losing track of time and looking for an idea of where to live instead.

It clicked, after a few hours, and the idea sat in his chest like sandpaper and failed shadowstepping.

It was better than nothing, at least.

 

* * *

 

The grotto was _fucking cold._

Would a house fit down there?

 

* * *

 

Upside of contracting people from Glanni's little list of old accomplices: they kept on the down low, and worked quickly.

Downside of contracting people in general: they tended to wonder why a _fourteen year old_ wanted to build a house _underground_.

?????: no one _else_ in Lazytown seemed to remember Robbie, or his mom, ever existing, so Robbie could only hope the contractors would soon forget, too.

 

* * *

 

_Robbie-_

Trees and roots and rubble and metal and slimy water-

_Trees and roots-_

_ROBBIE-_

He woke up choking off a scream, fingers digging into orange fuzz, purple blanket nearly strangling his neck. Robbie ripped it off his throat and threw it across the room as he slid off the chair, whole body shaking. Something that might've been a microwave hummed in the house, loud and petulant now that he was awake, and the barely-there wards he'd put over the tube to the surface tensed as his brain raced to figure out what was real or not.

Floor: cold.

Skin: cold.

Eyes: _so damn sore._

Robbie just wanted to _sleep._

But _something-_ he clawed his fingers through his hair, trying to find it, but the memory of the dream was fading too fast. All it left behind was a bitter taste in his mouth, like he'd bit his tongue, but his tongue was undamaged. And there was a _smell-_

It must just be the sewer, it was close enough to his house, maybe a pipe had broken or something.

His wards would've told him if there was anything else.

Robbie forced himself to crawl back into the chair, and try to sleep again _.  
_

 

* * *

 

The fact that his mother had never taken any pictures of herself hadn't bothered Robbie back then, but it sure as hell bothered him _now._

He was forgetting her face.

And he _hated_ himself for it.

 

* * *

 

By the time Robbie turned seventeen, he'd forgotten the color of her eyes. Blue, or green, or gold, or black... he couldn't _remember._

He spent a whole evening struggling with a pencil and paper, trying to sketch an outline of her face in the margin of a blueprint for a new device he was making, but the shape just wouldn't come to him, and he couldn't remember if her hair was wavy, or curly, or if it framed her face just so-

He gave up with a growl and threw the pencil at the wall.

 

* * *

 

He remembered _Glanni_ , hell, he remembered the _elf,_ why the _hell_ couldn't he remember _her-_

 

* * *

 

When Robbie was turning twenty, or maybe twenty-one, he'd lost track of so much time that he honestly couldn't remember the _month_ half the time, he warily tested one of the townsfolk who'd lived in Lazytown a while, an older teacher who once taught him, and talked frequently with his mother. He kept his wards up, just in case, and was wearing an experimental glamour garment that he _hoped_ might be enough to trick a human.

"Do you remember a family with the name 'Glæpur'?" he asked the woman as they both picked over the flowers sitting for sale outside the grocery store.

She gave him an odd look. "...they moved away several years ago, I believe," she answered after a minute's thought. There was a strange blur over her eyes, Robbie noticed. Her tongue moved over her lips like she was searching for a word, but after a moment she seemed to give up. He sensed the presence of the elf's old, old glamour upon her... somehow its remnants still had a sway over humans. Were they _really_ that stupid?

Robbie's throat wouldn't swallow. "What about... a man named Number Nine?"

At the sound of this, the woman brightened. "Oh, that nice hero? My daughter wouldn't stop talking about him. It's a shame he left so suddenly."

Robbie grit his teeth.

_His mother, wings in tatters, too weak to scream._

_Trees and roots and metal and **cold**._

"Yeah," he muttered, "a shame."

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, humans were smarter than Robbie initially gave them credit for. A _lot_ smarter.

He noticed about a decade or so after _it_ happened.

People started leaving Lazytown. The first time it happened, he didn't think much of it. When the woman who'd been mayor when he came to Lazytown died of some kind of lung disease, her family up and moved out within two days, without so much as a funeral or goodbye to their neighbors.

Robbie figured they didn't want to stick around places with painful memories. He could sympathize, and he was aggressively trying _not_ to care about what the other citizens did, so he put it out of his mind. He didn't _think_ about how no one gossiped about why they left, or so much as _mentioned_ missing them.

A month and a half later, a couple left just after their baby was born. Again, without a goodbye, and Robbie thought _that_ was a little odd, as they'd been popular amongst the other citizens for their parties, and were related to the richest family in the town. But no one seemed to _mind_ their moving away, so neither did Robbie.

Another family. An old man who liked to make garden gnomes that freaked Robbie out as a child. They all left.

He only really started _thinking_ about it all when Melanie Meanswell left, and Robbie had the misfortune of encountering her brother Milford all but weeping to Bessie inside the grocery store. Robbie kept his head down and focused on shoving several bags of cheese puffs into his basket, but he couldn't help but eavesdrop.

"She didn't even tell me where she was going!" Milford was fretting.

Bessie clucked her tongue. "Milford, I'm sure she's fine. She's a grown woman, she's more than capable of making her own decisions."

"All she said was she was having trouble sleeping here," Milford said, wringing his hands helplessly. "What do you suppose _that_ means??"

Robbie moved away from them _as quickly as humanly possible_ and didn't hear whatever Bessie said in response.

Paying for the groceries was a nightmare, between the odd look from the cashier at his admittedly unhealthy food choices, and the pressure of having _people_ in line around him... and something skittering up and down his spine like a marching troupe of spiders, provoked by Milford's worry for his sister, and his confusion at the abruptness of her departure.

A confusion which Robbie wished to Hell and back that he could share.

As soon as he got all the way back to the grotto and down the tube, he chucked his bags of groceries onto one of his workbenches and made haste for the windows in his poorly constructed house, practically pressing his face up to the glass to peer down the dark sewer tunnels. His fingers tapped the edges of the window, feeling out the wards, hunting for defects.

The wards hummed. He could all but feel them chiding, _you should've expected this._

Robbie grit his teeth and pulled away from the window, stalking back to a half-finished device that could make small objects invisible.

So. People were leaving Lazytown.

_Fleeing._

He grimaced, and thought, _good for them._

 

* * *

 

A couple years passed, and Robbie noticed every new person that came to Lazytown, mostly because there were _so few of them._

And only a handful - really, he could count them on one hand - actually ended up staying. The ones that left took more people with them. One of the first people to leave, part of the old mayor's family, came back for a day, to talk with a close friend. Within half a week, that friend moved away, too. This time, Robbie _distinctly_ remembered them - driving away from town, no goodbyes, house left empty.

The only new face who came, and stayed was a little boy. Not more than two years old, adopted by a couple of computer fanatics who were also oblivious to the people leaving Lazytown, but for an entirely different reason, in that they were shut ins to an extent that even _Robbie_ couldn't contend with.

The boy's presence highlighted to Robbie that there were almost _no_ kids in the town anymore. Families with children were among the first to leave, as if their parents could feel something _wrong,_ and unsafe, and... yeah, it made sense to Robbie.

 _His_ mom always knew when things were wrong, and that wasn't even just because she was a fairy, she just _knew._

The clever ones left Lazytown. Or the ones with something precious to lose. The rest who stayed seemed happy enough to live in the shadow of a decomposing elven glamour.

But was it _just_ the glamour?? Robbie knew the elf was powerful, but powerful enough that some essence of his surely by now _corrupted_ glamour would endure for more than a decade after his death?

Robbie took to scouring the edges of town, seeing how far the glamour stretched. It didn't even make it all the way to his house, nor did it blanket the entire town. At one point, maybe, but it was wearing so thin that he had to meditate in place for a good hour in some parts of town just to pick up a _hint_ of glamour magic. It was strongest near the playground, and the town hall, and the house that still had a _shred_ of fae wards.

Was the glamour enough to drive people away? Was it enough to creep into their dreams and sow discomfort until they were forced to run away?

Was it _enough?_

Gods. Robbie _hoped_ it was enough, because he had no idea what else it could possibly be.

 

* * *

 

The fact that _Milford Meanswell,_ of all people, managed to acquire the office of mayor, would've surprised Robbie more if it weren't for the fact that _no one opposed him._

There were so few people left. The ones who _were_ left barely seemed to care what happened around down. They just went about their lives, got married, had kids - the rich couple on the hill, who traveled a lot, had a boy with downy brown hair, and showed him off to the family down the street, who ran a small salon. The grandmother cooed over the little boy on a park bench, while a tiny pigtailed girl wrestled her father for control over a tricycle.

More kids. They were the only new additions to Lazytown, these days.

The girl nearly ran him over when she got control of the tricycle. Her father apologized to Robbie profusely, and Robbie just muttered that it was fine and got out of there as quickly as he could, before anyone could trap him in conversation.

Kids were _loud._ Loud and even more oblivious than grownups when it came to magic. They had a tendency to believe so wholeheartedly in the stuff that they couldn't tell when it was good or bad, they just _loved_ it so much.

That could be... dangerous.

Maybe there was a way to make them be _more_ quiet? Less obnoxiously adventurous, so there was a less of risk that they might wander and stumble into old, half-dead enchantments?

Robbie started going out less, and started _thinking_ more, about the town and its people and its _kids_ and its - its _something,_ he couldn't put his finger on it yet, there was _something_ and it _couldn't_ just be the glamour.

The town was still too _noisy._ He couldn't concentrate half the time, even being so far away from the center of town, his wards kept reminding him of the activity on the surface. The devices he'd established to keep an eye on the town were constantly ringing in his ears, and half the time no one was in any real danger, they were just - just being _people,_ and Robbie _couldn't focus._

People kept leaving and it _wasn't enough,_ if anything their absence made it _harder_ to think, because Robbie scoured every inch of his memory, and even resorted to tracking down old books about fairies and elves, and _nothing_ explained what was going on. A _Court_ would certainly have the power to drive people away, but even a half-Seelie like Robbie would've known if a Court was encroaching on the town.

There weren't any wards left that were strong enough to make people leave, and the elf-glamour couldn't be doing it on its own.

Maybe if Robbie could get an ounce of _sleep,_ he would have a better chance at solving this problem, but he either couldn't get to sleep, or his dreams were so restless they woke him after a few hours.

It became routine. Eat, invent, prowl town a bit, desperately try to sleep, fail, repeat. Somewhere in between all that, struggle to figure out _what the hell was going on._

People left. The handful of kids that were left, got bigger. That girl Robbie vaguely remembered, Daisy or something, had a son, chubby with wavy blonde hair. So small he could barely keep up with the other kids as they ran around.

Four kids.

_Too many kids._

Robbie had to _think,_ he had to have _quiet_ or else he'd never figure it out and something _worse_ might happen-

Something had to be done.

 

* * *

 

Pigtails gave him a narrowed-eyed look of suspicion that he could greatly appreciate, but he stayed focused.

"Who're you?" she needled, while the other kids wrestled over a scooter.

"Robbie," he said tonelessly.

"You live around here?"

"Yes. And you're _very_ loud." From a pocket in the back of his vest that was specially designed to be bigger on the inside, he drew out a slingshot. The girl's eyes widened curiously. "Wouldn't you rather do something quieter, like, see how many windows you can hit with this?"

Pigtails reached out for the slingshot, but Robbie pulled his arm back and gave her a pointed look. "Only if you promise to be quiet."

"Yeah, yeah!"

He gave her the slingshot, and she scooped a few rocks off the ground and darted away from the park. The only other kids were the small one, Ziggy - _who names their child Ziggy -_ and Sticky, or something like that. Ziggy was whining about a scooter, which Sticky seemed to have taken all for himself. He kept proclaiming it was _his_ and his only, and Ziggy just kept pouting, at least until Robbie introduced him to a handful of taffy and he waddled off back home.

Sticky disappeared shortly after that, happy to play alone, and _much_ quieter.

The oldest boy, who now had orange hair if Robbie remembered correctly... well, he was enough of a shut-in already, Robbie didn't need to lift a finger to keep that one quiet and out of trouble.

So, children proved easy enough to manipulate into listening, if he bribed them enough.

Now, maybe, he could _work._

 

* * *

 

Robbie shrieked as a device of his shot sparks and smoke, and at least one small gear that nearly clipped the side of his head before it clattered to the floor of his house.

"Oh, for the love of - it's just a _sewer,_ you're _water resistant,_ why do you keep _breaking??"_

The machine - a little drone built of paper and fabric and parts salvaged from an old blender - was _supposed_ to scout the Lazytown sewers for any sign of... well, _something._ Robbie had similar drones and bots exploring above ground. One, he'd made out an old kitten stuffed animal, but _that_ hadn't worked out so well, it apparently found a _real_ kitten and did not stand up to very insistent kittenish pestering. The only other one was just a ball with legs, making its way around the outside of town, testing especially around the forest for signs of magic misuse.

Nothing, and nothing, and _more_ nothing. The magic he put into them kept faltering, but none had come back in _pieces_ like this one.

Robbie turned it over, examining it for dents. Maybe it'd flown into a loose pipe.

He turned. Looked.

Hesitated. Looked again.

Robbie's stomach twisted.

He couldn't be sure, but on one of the drone's limbs, it... it almost looked like teeth marks.

No, no. It had to be... residue from when it self-destructed in his lap, or something.

_Something._

Robbie tossed the drone into a pile of other failed experiments and dragged himself over to the recliner.

He'd try again later. He needed sleep, at least a little of it, right now.

 

* * *

 

Robbie dreamed of steel, and dirt, and gold, and-

-blue.

 

* * *

 

One of Robbie's alarm systems squawked. The kids were being _noisy_ again.

Scowling, Robbie peered up one of his many periscopes and-

No. No, that wasn't right.

There was someone _new._

In _Lazytown._

Taller than the other kids, short pink bob, playing soccer with the other kids and she was - she was _new._

A cold draft swirled up around Robbie's feet from the sewer.

 

* * *

 

After coercing the other kids to calm down and _be quiet,_ Robbie followed Pinkie. After seeing her go into Milford's house, he could only assume she was a relative of some kind, probably his niece, but that opened up a whole _world_ of questions. Melanie Meanswell had left Lazytown so long ago, Robbie couldn't fathom how she remembered it, and what could _possibly_ convince her to send her _daughter_ here?

Robbie's head ached. This wasn't good.

The girl was going to one of the old mailboxes in town, one overgrown with weeds. She put a letter inside, and sent it off in a tube, and-

Robbie's head ached _more._

All around him, he felt the town... _shift._ Like a tremor, but only in his head, his heart, running up and down his spine.

His magic instincts started seething, and the elf glamour-

-the elf glamour _keened._ So sadly. So desperately.

Robbie forced all the magic he had that wasn't in his wards or glamours down into the ground, sent it chasing after the elf's lingering magic, and made the glamour _shut up,_ he couldn't have it _calling,_ it hadn't done that in more than a decade, why, _why_ was it doing it now??

 _Blue, blue, blue,_ his instincts shouted.

 _Shut up, shut up,_ Robbie shouted back.

A shadow passed over the ground, and he craned his head back as he heard a soft gasp from the girl, and-

-it was an _airship._

It smelled of _magic._

And it was _blue._

Something - _someone -_ came spinning out the side, plummeting downwards so fast that Robbie expected to hear a _splat,_ but the figure landed on a wall and _bounced_ over to where Pinky was standing with a gleeful smile.

"Are you Number Nine?"

Robbie _choked._

"Nope!" The man spun, and Robbie saw blonde hair, and _blue,_ and-

"Gods, _no,_ not _another_ one, _"_ he croaked helplessly.

"I'm Number Ten!"

This wasn't good _at all._

"My name-"

_Oh no, oh no-_

"-is Sportacus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEEEEAH BOYEEE, ITS DA BLUE KANGAROO
> 
> ...and so, we arrive at the end :D why were the last 2 chapers the hardest to write, out of all of them??
> 
> I am so, so proud of this fic. I didn't expect to be so devoted to finishing it, nor did i expect such a fantastic reception... I can only hope you all stick with me into the next part! I would apologize for all the heartbreak I evidently caused, but I am too overwhelmed with joy knowing people like my writing.
> 
> This story will continue in "Smells Like Something I'd Forgotten"
> 
> Special shoutout to CrochetRapter, for commenting about the poem which inspired the title of this story... I was wondering if anyone was going to take notice of that ;)


End file.
